Tips for managing a horse with dry coat syndrome?

[MinervaTheHen]

Hello!

I have a gelding who seems to have Equine Anhidrosis (dry coat syndrome), and I had to admit, I’m a little out of my comfort zone here when it comes to management.

So a little context for the issue; he is a 3 year old purebred chincoteauge pony with no other obvious health concerns or medical history, who is currently living in a very cold climate, and has lived in a cold climate for the entire winter. He only sweats in about a six square inch area on his neck, regardless of workload or body temperature. I am scheduling a vet appointment to confirm the issue and hopefully pinpoint cause, but factoring in his age, relative health, and the time he has been living in cooler weather, I’m leaning towards this being a genetic condition in his case.

As it’s currently 5 degrees outside, I’m not super concerned about it for the time being, however, we have hot summers here and I am hoping to keep him in consistent training. I don’t know anyone else who has dealt with this in a young working horse. Has anyone else dealt with something similar?

I know the easy fixes (hose downs after riding, feeding electrolytes, fan in his stall, ect.), but I would love to hear any other tricks or things I should expect.

 

[SmiYa0126]

@casportpony please help!

 

[Skye'sDucks]

I just more recently worked with a horse with the same condition, he was a non-sweater. This horse didn't sweat a drop for me, though. I'm still not entirely sure on what is the cause, but there were two factors in getting him sweating, actually. The first sounds funny, but actually dark beer helps them sweat. It's helped two horses I know so far. It has to be dark beer, though. People laugh when I tell them that, but it actually does help at least somewhat. We'd give the horse one dark beer a day after they worked to encourage sweating.

What I really think helped this particular horse though was an herbal remedy, although I can't recall what the name of it is now. It could be your vet will know of something similar/the same thing that can help, I'm not sure, but it doesn't hurt to ask about some similar type of supplement your vet may have.

Until we got Benny, the horse, to sweat, I was just really careful when I worked him. I usually took him out much earlier in the morning, before it got too hot, and I watched his workload and how long and hard I lunged/rode him. Nothing too heavy/intense for very long so he didn't get too hot. I then would take my time cooling him down, rinsing him for a while, keeping him in the shade, letting him hand graze for a little while. All of this helped. He did have a fan in his stall and I was always careful to keep his water buckets in his stall super clean and gave him lots of fresh water. He at least is a really good drinker.

We also would watch his turn out time, too. We just didn't turn him out very long or at all during the day, and instead would turn him out at night. This kept him out of the sun and heat. Some days if he looked pretty miserable/hot in his stall I even would take him out and hose him in the middle of the day, I'm not sure if it does a ton but I think it would help give him some relief.

He sweats good for us now, though. Another thing you can give actually is Gatorade; we often buy the powder and mix it in a smaller bucket. It helps restore their lost electrolytes and gets water in them, but you do have to be mindful of the sugar content in Gatorade, though. Some of our horses love the beer and gatorade, others hate it lol, so I guess you'd have to experiment with that.

 

[MinervaTheHen]

I just more recently worked with a horse with the same condition, he was a non-sweater. This horse didn't sweat a drop for me, though. I'm still not entirely sure on what is the cause, but there were two factors in getting him sweating, actually. The first sounds funny, but actually dark beer helps them sweat. It's helped two horses I know so far. It has to be dark beer, though. People laugh when I tell them that, but it actually does help at least somewhat. We'd give the horse one dark beer a day after they worked to encourage sweating.

What I really think helped this particular horse though was an herbal remedy, although I can't recall what the name of it is now. It could be your vet will know of something similar/the same thing that can help, I'm not sure, but it doesn't hurt to ask about some similar type of supplement your vet may have.

Until we got Benny, the horse, to sweat, I was just really careful when I worked him. I usually took him out much earlier in the morning, before it got too hot, and I watched his workload and how long and hard I lunged/rode him. Nothing too heavy/intense for very long so he didn't get too hot. I then would take my time cooling him down, rinsing him for a while, keeping him in the shade, letting him hand graze for a little while. All of this helped. He did have a fan in his stall and I was always careful to keep his water buckets in his stall super clean and gave him lots of fresh water. He at least is a really good drinker.

We also would watch his turn out time, too. We just didn't turn him out very long or at all during the day, and instead would turn him out at night. This kept him out of the sun and heat. Some days if he looked pretty miserable/hot in his stall I even would take him out and hose him in the middle of the day, I'm not sure if it does a ton but I think it would help give him some relief.

He sweats good for us now, though. Another thing you can give actually is Gatorade; we often buy the powder and mix it in a smaller bucket. It helps restore their lost electrolytes and gets water in them, but you do have to be mindful of the sugar content in Gatorade, though. Some of our horses love the beer and gatorade, others hate it lol, so I guess you'd have to experiment with that.

That is fascinating! I’ll definitely bring it up to my vet, and I guess we’ll just try everything until something works! Thank you