Category: Other issues

How to clean a horse’s sheath at home

Posted on: August 24, 2014

This article was reviewed and updated April 5, 2023.

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The sheath is one of those things that many horse owners pretend doesn’t exist. But I’ve found my gelding really appreciates good hygiene, and sheath cleaning needs to be less embarrassing and a higher priority.

I wanted to do a video on sheath cleaning, but my attempt to do so turned out to be a longish video of my elbow. If I posted it, viewers wouldn’t be able to tell what I was doing.

I will describe this process with words.

I have to clean the sheath of my laminitic horse every other week to prevent him from itching.

Thus, I had to learn how to do this myself rather than call the vet.

Since the sheath is a sensitive area, the water must be warm. I hook up a hose to my kitchen sink with an adapter and run the hose out the kitchen door since I don’t have hot water in my barn.

There is the smell factor. Sheath cleaning can leave your hands smelling unpleasant. Gloves can help with this, but I have never gotten through a cleaning without taking off the gloves because they were getting in the way. Don’t clean a sheath if you need to be someplace in an hour.

Preparation

Cleaning solution:

• Walmart’s Equate brand mouthwash, any variety
• Baking soda

Fill a small bucket a third full with water and add three big glugs of the mouthwash (maybe a fourth or fifth of the container). I don’t think you can use too much.

Tear off eight to 10 sections of paper towels, with two paper towels per section, and put them in the water.

Halter the horse and bring it to the wash area.

Take a segment of paper towels out of the bucket and start cleaning inside the sheath.

The sheath has two chambers. The lower chamber near the opening, where most of the dirt collects, and the upper sheath, which is harder to reach.

Lower chamber

Dirt and wax tend to accumulate in the area just inside the opening of the lower chamber. That debris will cover the first paper towels you use. In fact, if you haven’t cleaned the sheath in a long time, you may need more than 10 segments of paper towels for this cleaning.

As you work, you may need to peel or roll big pieces of debris off the walls of the sheath with your hand.

Once you have most of the debris removed, get a final wet paper towel segment and sprinkle a very generous pile of baking soda on it and use that to get the last bit of debris off the sheath wall, particularly just inside the opening.

Then use the hose to rinse everything off. I just thread the hose inside the lower chamber. I’ve never had a problem with the horse minding.

It’s tempting to do the baking soda pass a second time. I would recommend against it because you need to be careful not to make the sheath too dry. It will be a little swollen, if you do, and your horse will be walking funny in back for about a day.

Upper chamber

As you work the hose toward the far end of the lower chamber, you will be able to work maybe two fingers into the upper chamber, where the penis will be hiding. I use my fingers to remove the small amount of debris in there as the hose is squirting water in there. At first, my horse noticed this part of the cleaning, but now he doesn’t.

There are blog posts that talk about removing a bean at the end of the penis. I’ve never found anything there, but I won’t discount what others are recommending.

Clean-up

Wash the bucket and hose well with either mouthwash and baking soda or dishwashing detergent. I wash these items and the hose in between horses if I’m doing more than one horse.

I used to get two horses done in under 15 minutes. Now I just have the one gelding, and it takes only five minutes.

Sheath cleaning does not take long, and I think it’s a real service for geldings and stallions.

I’ve heard from mare owners that mares can have issues with itch, too. So, mare owners, feel free to apply these directions to your mare’s itchy problems, too.

The older I get, the more mistakes I regret. Not paying attention to my horses’ personal hygiene over the years was a big mistake. Comfort matters.

What is the link between laminitis and horse smegma?

Posted on: April 14, 2013

This article was reviewed and updated April 5, 2023.

Horse smegma is not a topic that gets a lot of press.

I went on a mission in 2013 to find the definitive study on smegma and laminitis and came up empty. None seemed to exist.

Horse smegma is the stuff that builds up inside the male horse’s sheath.

I found a few desperate forum postings by horse owners requesting help in dealing with horses with an itchy sheath, as well as references on less established sites to excessive smegma production in horses with insulin resistance. But I didn’t find one university or medical site that had waded into the conversation, as of 2013.

Kurt has what I would describe as excess smegma. And he used to itch a lot. He was backing into me, sometimes at a trot. Sometimes, he would see me come out of the house and run to me from across the driveway, then spin around and back into me.

My vet made a renewed effort to tackle this issue in February 2013 when I pointed out the problem had existed for five years, and I felt like a terrible owner.

Luckily, I now have a female vet. My previous male vets just sort of sighed when I brought up the topic. I think their take on it was that Kurt should take a little itch like a man. It wasn’t a “little” itch, and Kurt preferred to fix it.

In the past, the female vet tried cleaning Kurt herself, as well as approving the idea of me trying various feminine hygiene products on Kurt. None worked.

Kurt tumor 2 17 2013

Kurt’s biggest tumor in his sheath on Feb. 17, 2013.

This time, she suggested we put Kurt on Tagamet, or cimetidine, commonly used as an antacid in horses and people because it blocks the action of histamine on certain cells in the stomach. Maybe it would block a similar allergic reaction in the sheath. The drug also has been shown in some studies to benefit cancer patients. Kurt has several tumors in his sheath. The idea was to reduce the itching and shrink the tumors.

Note that my own search of these tumor studies found more research that says the drug doesn’t help than does. However, there are a lot of forums with horse owners reporting that Tagamet prevented regrowth of a tumor that was removed. I would consider inhibiting growth of tumors worth using it. Mostly, I cared about the itching.

Kurt started taking the Tagamet on March 5, 2013, and he was on it for a month.   The experiment looked good in the early going. He didn’t back into me very much. We went days without him bothering me. I think he was distracted by the snow. Once the weather warmed to 70 degrees, Kurt became itchy again. I’m not recommending Tagamet as a treatment for the itch. We stopped using it.

After hearing some local radio broadcasters rave about a mixture of water, mouthwash and vinegar as a foot wash, I decided to try that on Kurt’s sheath. It turned out to be a great concoction for cleaning a sheath, and I added baking soda to the mix because I thought it helped reduce the itch even more. Kurt became much less frantic. And the cleanings reduced the smell considerably.

I later removed the vinegar from the mixture because I didn’t think it was needed.

I clean Kurt every two weeks in a process that I describe here.

Silvia Kornherr, an equine nutritionist from Canada, read my original post on this topic and commented that insulin resistance and Cushing’s disease deal with metabolic dysfunction, which leads to many hormonal imbalances, not just inbalances in insulin and ACTH. Logically, there are going to be secondary changes in many areas affected by the hormonal imbalances.

She said many owners of horses with Cushing’s report increased smegma production and a change in the consistency of the smegma. The smegma becomes very thick, glue-like and abrasive against the sensitive sheath skin, causing inflammation, itching and infection, as well as blockage.

Based on her experience in treating horses with this problem, she suggested I try Animal Legends’ Tea Tree Oil enriched with vitamins A, D and E in the spray formulation. So we did in July 2013. We don’t use it currently because the washing alone seems to solve the problem.

So what is the contents of smegma?

There’s an amusing article on ScienceBlogs that discusses the content. The article says smegma is a waxy, oily secretion from skin cells. It consists of about 71 percent fatty acids and 18 percent cholesterol and cholesterol esters.

The article looks at a study published in 1947 by top research institutions that applied horse smegma to mice (poor mice) to see if the smegma produced cancerous tumors. It did not.

I’m not trying to blame Kurt’s tumors on the smegma. The mice study did say that horse smegma was used because penile cancer is frequent in the horse. But, technically, Kurt has sheath tumors. And that study was done in 1947. There are other statements in the study that are not backed up by current science.

Another interesting study is one published by a veterinary school in Turkey in 2006 that looked at the immune function of the reproductive tract of stallions, including their sheaths, and it concluded that the reproductive tract does likely “contribute to the immune surveillance” of the horse. I suspect the fact that Kurt’s sheath has been having an immune system reaction is not helping the insulin resistance.

I hit the jackpot when I did a Google search of “diabetes” and “itch,” because Google suggested several additional terms and one was “groin.” A forum on the site of the American Diabetes Association is full of people, both male and female, with anguished stories about groin itch related to their diabetes. And the ADA’s page on skin disorders says: “As many as 33 percent of people with diabetes will have a skin disorder caused or affected by diabetes at some time in their lives. In fact, such problems are sometimes the first sign that a person has diabetes. … These include bacterial infections, fungal infections, and itching.”

If your laminitic horse has jock itch, and your vet rolls his eyes or sighs, this is one condition that you can help on your own with products found easily. Click this link to read a tutorial on cleaning an itchy sheath. Your horse will thank you.

Laminitic horses can develop severe osteoporosis in their long pasterns

Posted on: January 1, 2012

Angel on May 4, 2011

Angel on May 4, 2011. She was put down two days later. Her X-rays showed that her coffin bones in both front feet were half gone and she had developed a facture in her left coffin bone. She had managed to get around for years by carrying the bulk of her weight in her hind end.

In my mare Angel’s final few years with laminitis before dying in May 2011, the focus shifted a little from her front hooves to her long pasterns, what I think of as her ankles, sometimes called “P1.” She developed pretty severe osteoporosis in her front long pasterns, and the veterinarian who took over her case was more than a little concerned about her trotting or galloping and having something catastrophic happen to her legs.

In Angel’s X-rays during that time, her long pasterns should have been white, but they were pretty dark other than a white outline showing the edges. I’m no radiology expert, but if white represents healthy bone, dark gray to almost black can’t be good.

Of course, this osteoporosis was in addition to all sorts of bad things happening to her coffin bone two bones away.

Angel’s vet said the osteoporosis in the long pastern was due to lack of weight-bearing on the front legs. Over the years, Angel did get very comfortable carrying most of her weight behind, and she could spin on those hind legs like nothing I had ever seen. Given the severity of her case, she likely would have been put down by most vets early on. And her final vet was surprised that she was still alive but agreed with me that as long as Angel had such a sunny and positive outlook, there was no need to make any drastic decisions “in her best interest.”

The fact that Angel made it seven years led to developments in her that might not be well-documented or studied. I have found no research on long pastern osteoporosis.

I did find two studies that looked at the bony changes in the distal phalanx, or coffin bone, often referred to as P3, which is connected to the laminae in the feet. This is the bone that usually changes position in the foot. The bone should be shaped similarly to a hoof and fit in perfect alignment in its cavity inside the hoof.

In 1987, researcher Robert Linford looked at bone changes with trauma- and carbohydrate-related laminitis. He said changes in the laminae were likely to cause changes to the bony structure in the coffin bone.

In 2010, researcher Julie B. Engiles published a 10-page paper in Veterinary Clinics of North America: Equine Practice and mentioned that she was picking up where Linford had left off, as no other research in the interim appeared to study the deterioration of the coffin bone during laminitis.

She said developments seen in humans due to inflammatory conditions or alterations in biomechanical forces lead to active bone remodeling as well as medullary edema and other changes, and these changes are similar to what is seen in the distal phalanx in horses with laminitis.

The medullary cavity is the center of the bone shaft where marrow is found.

Engiles concluded that the coffin bone should be considered, perhaps in addition to the laminae, as a continuing source of pain and self-perpetuating inflammation.

In Angel’s case, the front half of her coffin bone just eventually wore away, leaving her with half a coffin bone. When Angel’s vet took her last set of X-rays and turned around to look at the monitor, the words “holy bananas” were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Holy bananas told me everything I needed to know. Some problems even the sunniest of horses can’t overcome.

Does circadian rhythm play a role in laminitis and founder in horses?

Posted on: December 21, 2011

From left: Goldie, Angel, Robin, Stitches (lying down) and Kurt all hang out together. Wherever the mares were, the geldings were, too.

For years, I wondered if my second-shift schedule may have caused my horses’ laminitis and founder by messing up their circadian rhythm.

I was a journalist who worked nights and came home around 1 or 2 a.m. The horses were hungry, and I fed them when I got home. They got a handful of grain, usually because some of them needed bute, and two flakes of hay per horse.

I was more convinced of the association during Angel’s last days in May 2011, when I was spending a lot of time in the shed with her after I fed her overnight. I just sat in the shavings and hung out, looking up at the stars with her. I noticed that the boys ate a little hay and then both lied down. So, I put calories in their stomachs and then they went to bed with that sugar in their system.

In people, we know that’s a big no-no.

I’ve searched on and off since for research on a horse’s circadian rhythm to test my theory, and I have found two studies that indicate that horses actually tend to graze the most overnight when left to do whatever they want, though they also are more prone to lie down overnight than at any other time.

Over the years, my geldings probably chose to lie down in the shavings overnight because they always looked to the mares for guidance. If the mares were lying down, then they would, too. In fact, after Angel died and left the geldings alone, those two boys were so lost, they didn’t know what to do with themselves for weeks.

I now know that, if Angel hadn’t been there, they would have been off grazing, because that is what they do now. Robin Hood snorts wherever he goes. I hear him all night long. And they are on the move all night, though I limit where they can go because I don’t want them stuffing their face with grass. They tend to nap first thing in the morning.

It’s possible that the laminitic mares caused them to change their pattern of movement, leading to the boys getting fat. But, I don’t think the mares’ initial founder cases were caused by me feeding them in the middle of the night. I likely would have done more damage if I had fed them before work at 4 p.m. and then not fed them again until the next morning.

The first of the two studies I found was conducted by Cornell University in 1988. It watched a herd of eight Przewalski horses on pasture during summer around the clock and recorded their behavior. The abstract does not say how long the study lasted or where the horses were located, but I’m assuming it was New York.

The horses spent about 46.4 percent of their time feeding, .5 percent of their time drinking, 20.6 percent standing, 15.7 percent standing-resting, 1.7 percent self-grooming, 2.2 percent mutually grooming, 7.4 percent moving, 1.2 percent lying laterally and 4.1 percent lying sternally, or upright, similar to a relaxing dog. They averaged about 45 behavorial states per hour.

The study says the horses spent the greatest amount of time grazing from 8 p.m. and 4 a.m., when the temperatures were lower. They spent 68 percent of their time from 8 p.m. to midnight feeding, but only 30 percent of their time from 8 a.m to noon feeding. Recumbent rest, or lying down, was most common between midnight and 4 a.m. As it got hotter during the day, the horses spent more time standing and drinking than grazing.

The second study, by the Division of Animal Production in Australia in 2003, was a comparison of circadian patterns of sheep, cattle and horses grouped together. The abstract is brief but it notes that the horses in the study grazed extensively all night, whereas the sheep and cattle grazed more intensely during the morning and afternoon. It said horses spent only 1.1 hours lying down per day, whereas sheep and cattle spent 11.6 and 10.5 hours, respectively.

Tricks for giving medicine to laminitic and foundered horses

Posted on: December 19, 2011

Hollow out the end of a carrot with a steak knife to hide your horse's medicine.

Hollow out the end of a carrot with a steak knife to hide your horse’s medicine.

Over 15 years of treating six horses with laminitis, I’ve had to come up with many weird and wonderful ways to give medicine and supplements.

Success often hinges on how bad the medicine or supplement tastes, and some medicines are harder to mask than others.

For example, I gave the supplement LaminaSaver, which is mostly jiaogulan, to Angel on and off for two years to try to stimulate circulation in her feet during the winter. The last few years, winter was really hard on her, and her mobility dropped off with the temperature. But, I gave her this supplement with mixed feelings. Have you ever tasted LaminaSaver? It’s terrible, in my opinion. And the taste stays with you for hours no matter how you try to get rid of it.

I gave it to Angel by buying a juicer, juicing carrots and mixing the powder in with the carrot juice, then squirting the mixture in her mouth with a syringe. The powder tasted better, but it still wasn’t great; at least there was no horrible aftertaste. But, I never was comfortable making her take something that tasted that bad. And the cleanup after each dose was tremendous.

I started giving the horses Quiessence either by hand or in their feed several years ago and kept that up until October 2011; the magnesium was supposed to help control insulin resistance in laminitic horses. Quiessence is made with alfalfa, so the horses always wolfed that down. I never tasted it myself. In fact, I usually only taste things when the horses refuse to eat them. I always wondered about the wisdom of giving them alfalfa, but at least I didn’t have to do much work on that one.

For some medicine, such as bute, it seems better to just get it down without the horse tasting it.

I used to get the apple-flavored powder bute and never had a problem with the horses cleaning it up in their feed. But, I was trying to feed as little as possible, and you need a certain amount of feed to cover it, especially if you’re also mixing in thyroid powder, which I’ve been doing for a long time.

I changed vets and suddenly only had the option of the orange-flavored bute powder. None of my horses would touch it. After getting through one tub by putting the powder in a syringe and squirting into the horses’ mouths (not so easy in the winter when my fingers aren’t working), I changed to bute boluses.

They weren’t orange flavored or scented, and they were cheaper. I didn’t really have a plan how to give them when they arrived. I was thinking about crushing them and given them through a syringe in the same fashion, but I stumbled upon a new trick as I was trying to figure it out.

I took a steak knife and hollowed out the end of a piece of carrot and placed half a bolus of bute inside, and each horse ate his bute as if it wasn’t there.

For a whole gram, I stuck with the half gram-per-carrot ratio and just used two carrot pieces.

This process has worked well for other pills, such as antibiotics.

The only two supplements I’m using now are the Heiro to lower their insulin levels and thyroid powder. As long as there is some feed to cover the thyroid powder, the horses just eat it. I don’t think it has a taste.

The Heiro supplement is chock full of cinnamon. When you open the jar, the whole room smells like cinnamon. The instructions provide ways to make it more palatable for horses, but my horses didn’t have a bad initial reaction. That first day, I held my breath as I put the buckets down, because I was thinking, “This is our only hope to stop this latest bout of laminitis; please don’t let this be a feeding nightmare.” I based that feeling on the fact that we had tried everything else and nothing had stopped bouts of laminitis in progress, and this product was designed to lower insulin levels in laminitic horses, which is what my horses needed. If I could get the supplement in them, I thought it would work.

The horses at first chewed their feed over and over with puzzled looks on their faces because they had never tasted anything like it, but now they pounce on their breakfast, which is when they get the Heiro, and lick their buckets clean. Big relief.

My plea to anyone thinking of making drugs or supplements for laminitic horses in the future is: Please make them taste good or make them in bolus form. Don’t ask my horses to eat anything you wouldn’t want to eat yourself.

Excessive tail growth in horses with chronic laminitis and founder

Posted on: December 16, 2011

Angel's tail before and after getting several inches trimmed from it. Laminitis caused the tail to grow excessively.

Angel’s tail before and after getting several inches trimmed from it. Laminitis caused the tail to grow excessively.

In all the thousands of articles online about the effects of chronic laminitis, a topic that seems to get no coverage is excess tail growth.

At first, I didn’t even consider that a laminitis-related issue. But, I was talking to someone at the laminitis conference that I attended in 2007, and the tail thing just came up. She must have mentioned it, because I remember my surprised response being something on the order of, “Your horses, too!”

The more I thought about it in the following days, the more the excessive tail growth had to be laminitis, because Angel always had a lousy tail and suddenly the hair was growing maybe 18 inches a year. I’m guessing on that measurement, but every year at the first snowfall, I cut off at least a foot of the tail, and I also cut it back in the summer because she was always stepping on it. Same for Goldie and Stitches. In fact, Stitches’ tail was bitten off by a fellow horse when she was a 2-year-old, and I never could get it to grow beyond her hocks after that. Suddenly, after the laminitis started, it was dragging the ground.

I spent hours searching online trying to find any article on excessive tail growth, and I just keep getting how-to articles on growing a long horse tail or information on the plant horsetail.

I thought I had a lot of photos of this in my collection, but I’m afraid the pickings are slim. But, here is one set of photos of Angel’s tail before and after I trimmed it.