Bobbing for apple bits

“Get Your Horse to Drink Up” (Hands On, EQUUS 466) offered very helpful advice for keeping a horse hydrated in the summer months as well as when the weather goes from hot to cold very fast. One trick that I have learned over the last year is to chop up an apple into small chunks and to throw them in the water bucket. This way, when the horse goes to get the treat he also rehydrates himself. as I picked up the whole five acres each day. I added a feed-through fly control. The houseflies and stableflies seemed to be abating, but the deer flies, horseflies, biting gnats and mosquitoes were getting worse. The horses were miserable and itchy.

When I started seeing white, threadlike structures appearing on the horse’s necks and chests I decided it was time to deworm with ivermectin, but the threads got worse. I sprayed the horses with fly spray, saturating the “wormy” areas---when more white threads appeared, I kept spraying.

I sent my veterinarian photographs and submitted samples of the white, fluffy stuffy. Analysis showed only skin and hair---no bacteria or mange. Still, the horses were so lethargic that they