Rain Rot

I have learned that owning horses is not as easy as one may think.  It seems every year I learn something new.  Horses are far more sensitive then other livestock including miniature horses. They pick up diseases easier, have more sound issues and weight problems.  This winter we discovered a new disease in horses.  It is called rain rot.  Sierra has gotten badly infected.

But as nasty as it looks, this is not a life-threatening disease and is a common issue with horses so I've been told.  Even my Farm Girl's coach has it on some of his horses. It's mostly caused by the warm humid climate when the hair particles are killed and then you have an onslaught of cold weather and the thick winter coat grows in on top of those dead cells.  We didn't notice it until late fall when we discovered a bunch of bumps under Sierra's coat and a baseball size patch of hair came off in my hand. Initially we thought she had mites and treated her for that however it never went away and the bumps continued while hair particles fell off.  A call to the vet diagnosed rain rot over the phone which her coach confirmed when he came to take a look at her.  When the vet came out to take a look at Blossom, he noticed Sierra and thought she might have mites or lice so did a thorough search through her coat and found as we already new that she did not have any.  He prescribed an antibiotic for her and advised us to give her a bath with an iodine based shampoo.  Meanwhile, we are to remove all the dead hair and expose the skin in order for it to heal.

She is on antibiotics for a couple more days but then she will be sent outside to let the sun heal the rest.  The sun is the best medicine in this case and the rain is the worse.  We cannot allow rain or snow to touch the rain rot or it we will be back where we started from and Sierra will never heal.