Rain Rot
Rainy season is here, and with it comes the constant threat of rain rot, that nasty disease that harms your horse’s sensitive skin and keeps you from enjoying those long trail rides in cooler weather. Recognizing and preventing rain rot has always been a horseman’s bane, but now a revolutionary new treatment called Silverquine® can make taking care of your horse infinitely faster and easier.
Causes
Rain rot, also called “rain scald,” is a bacterial and/or fungal infection of a horse’s hair follicles, typically on the back, flanks, and hindquarters. It is normally found on animals turned outside full-time, usually during seasons of great humidity and prolonged periods of rain. The rain depletes the hair of its natural oils and softens the animal’s skin, allowing bacteria present in the environment to create skin infections.
The fungal variety of rain rot occurs when fungal spores are transferred from an infected horse by a brush, a saddle, or a blanket to a susceptible one, usually an animal with a heavy hair coat that keeps moisture in contact with their skin. This moisture allows the spores to grow and infect any skin damage already present, including bug bites, scrapes, or cuts.
Signs & Symptoms
Rain rot typically occurs on the back, rump, necks, and flanks of affected horses and initially presents as a series of small bumps. As the disease progresses, lesions form circular scabs covered with matted tufts of hair. Some of these scabs can grow to be a quarter-inch thick.
Because this disease results in a moist, warm environment for bacteria, it’s a good place for a secondary bacterial infection like staphylococcus or streptococcus.
While the scabs themselves are not painful to your horse, the treatment that typically includes removing them, can be uncomfortable.
Rain Rot Prevention
The best way to prevent rain rot is to keep your horse as dry as possible during wet weather and protect him from biting insects. Thoroughly disinfect any brushes or combs in bleach water and wash your hands after handling infected animals. Never share blankets or saddles between horses unless they have been fully disinfected.
Treatment
Treatment begins when you remove the scabs, and allow the affected skin to become exposed to sunlight and air. The skin underneath might be gray and healing, or pink and oozing, and it will need to be treated to prevent further infection.
Traditional veterinary treatment typically includes bathing your horse daily in an iodine shampoo, chlorhexidine shampoo, or benzoyl peroxide, and removing the mats and scabs daily for a week. Systemic and topical antibiotic therapy is also commonly used to kill any remaining initial or secondary infections. Because today’s bacteria has become resistant to modern-day antibiotics, this system is no longer working as well as it once did.
Silverquine® is a new water-based topical gel that has been clinically proven to work on equine skin problems, including rain rot, thrush and hoof thrush, ringworm, summer sores, and equine wound care. And because it absorbs quickly into the skin, there is no moisture left behind to allow the disease-causing bacteria and fungus to grow.
Based on traditional veterinary medicine that used silver to help treat wounds and other infections in animals prior to the invention of modern day antibiotics, Silverquine® is an ALL NATURAL product that contains no alcohol or synthetic chemicals to inhibit stem cell growth or epithelialization – the growth of granular tissue over open wounds. It has also been shown to promote hair growth over ringworm and rain rot lesions.
In addition, our Silverquine® Technology consists of silver nanomolecules (less than .015 micrometers in size) suspended within a water molecule. Our gel has been safety tested, and proven more beneficial than silver sulfadiazine cream, a veterinary cream that contains 100 times the amount of silver found in Silverquine®. Silverquine® has even proven so non-toxic that it can be used to treat eye infections in horses without adverse affects.
Don’t wait until rainy weather causes problems for your horse. Be prepared for any skin, eye, or hoof issues all year round, and keep a tube in your equine first aid kit.