Category: Systems – skin and hair

The purposes of skin and hair are many and equally important.  They keep everything inside in and everything outside out. It grows hair and adds fat …

This topic covers anything that isn't considered normal on the skin of the horse and is not categorized into another topic.

Bandaging accomplishes two things: 1) It applies pressure to the area to drive edema out of the limb and 2) keeps dirt from getting a wound if there i…

The cause for the horse's skin to lose color in patches of hair in one spot or throughout its body is not common and is still without explanation.

Dermatitis In Horses

Fascial Tears In Horses

Surgery topics are items that help the horse owner understand the fundamentals behind wounds and surgical lesions in horses. This particular topic ne…

When body weight is applied to the skin area for a prolonged period of time, the skin actually dies from the pressure placed upon it creating pressure…

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Puncture wounds can be invisible and inoculate the area with bacteria. If left untreated the infection can kill your horse. A tetanus vaccination is e…

Shoe Boils In Horses

The purpose of an abscess is to move a foreign material that is inside the body to the outside. When this occurs, it is said to be draining and is a …

In vet school I learned that a lump is a lump until proven otherwise. Only a biopsy can determine or confirm a diagnosis.

Some horses will react adversely to medications showing a disruption from the normal skin condition. These include bumps, depigmentation, and tempora…

Scars occur during healing of full thickness skin wounds including surgery. They can range from unseen but felt to hairless, depigmented masses.

Skin rubs occur either acutely from trauma or insidiously through wear against objects such as tack, blankets, or the environment.

Tail rubbing is common in stabled and non-stabled horses and the cause is simple as well as the solution. The frayed hairs at the tail head is evidenc…

Traumatic wounds are different from surgical wounds for one major reason. The underlying trauma to the soft tissue complicates healing that is beyond…

Most skin diseases in horses are ignored and random treatments are applied or the lesion is ignored. Here are a few of these.

Wire wounds are difficult because of the underlying soft tissue damage that wants to slough off before the wound can close.