Can some one tell me.....isn't it okay to put Seven dust in the horses manes to prevent ticks?  I haven't done it yet cause I wasn't sure if I was remembering correctly.  My guys have a lot of them right now and it's been too cool to bathe them yet.

Thanks.

Ticks

Ticks are a dangerous parasite because they carry a large number of diseases of humans and animals, including horses. Once premises are infested with ticks, they will become an increasingly severe problem. Therefore prompt action should be taken to destroy ticks when they are first found on a horse. The owner will usually not see the larval forms of the ticks, but rather the engorged tick attached to the skin.

When only occasional ticks are seen, the simplest way of handling them is to squirt them with a tick bomb (such as those made for dogs) or dab them with a little screwworm smear. They will then die and fall off, in time. Applying lighted cigarettes or gasoline is unnecessary and unsafe.

Ear ticks

These are especially troublesome in horses because they live deep down in the ear, causing great discomfort to the horse. Horses with ear ticks will shake their heads from side to side, become ear-shy and are hard to bridle.

These ticks are easily killed by instilling in the ear a mixture of mineral oil with a little lindane screwworm smear mixed in. Commercial mixtures are available, too. It is necessary to restrain the horse with a twitch while doing it or he will not allow the medication to be left in the ear and will immediately shake it out.

If the ears have been infested for a long time, there might be considerable debris and a secondary infection present, necessitating veterinarian attention.

Control/prevention
Tick control is the key to minimization of tick-borne diseases. The tick population can be kept to a minimum by maintaining fields and paddocks in a closely mowed state, and horses should be kept out of wooded or overgrown areas.
Routine examinations should be performed on the horses. The primary sites of tick infestation are the ears, mane, tail, and under the tail, around the anus and vulva. In a tropical country, I have seen in excess of 100 ticks in these latter areas on a single mare.
Manually removing the ticks is tedious and may well not be fully appreciated by the horse, especially in the anal-vulvar area, so the proper use of parasiticides or pesticides is the treatment of choice. Remember: a tick is not an insect it is an arachnid therefore, most insecticides are of no help. Pyrethrins and permethrins are effective, but it is essential to strictly follow the instructions on the label.
The life cycle of some ticks is two or three years, so if you do choose to
remove them manually (which you may well do in the case of only a few ticks), dont just flick them onto the ground or the stall floor. Do something to kill them. The brick-and-hammer method is especially effective, but much easier and more convenient is the maintenance of a small bucket (or coffee can) of water, into which you can drop the removed ticks. They are notoriously poor swimmers.

If you can find PrevenTic, a dog flea and tick spray, it works about the best of anything I've tried. Vet told me about it, I spray the underside of the mane and dock of the tail and stay tick-free for weeks. Adams Flea and Tick works well also.

Paul,

I hate to ask a stupid question, what the heck is "screwworm smear"?

Thanks!

I agree with the "spot-on" stuff. It has worked with my horses really well. You just have to keep up with it at every 14 days though. Another thing that works well for horses with "sensitive" skin, skin that the fly's  and those little "no see-ums" (black nats)just love on the under side of the belly.   T- zon  . This stuff is awesome. I tried everything last year. Swat, and all the others to no avail.

 T-zon  has Tea tree oil and Hydrocortisone for the itching. I have completely eliminated the raw line under my gelding's belly that went from his hind legs all the way to his front legs. (He was sooooo miserable last year!)

smear contains 3 percent of lindane and 35 percent of pine oil

This was developed by cattlemen...

http://www.lindane.com/?gclid=CO-19Z74rpMCFQLBsgodUyusnw

T-Zon®
Equine Dermal Care Cream
http://www.healing-tree.com/T-ZonEquine.html

Duplicate post...

Paul beat me to it!!

 I ordered a whole case of the stuff. Got a great price, ended up being 12 bottles for like $120- instead of paying $12-14 per bottle! Dr. Witherspoon is great. Met him at the local Horse Expo here in Sacramento Ca.

The
Tea-Clenz" shampoo (antimicrobial anti-fungal) is great stuff too.

Brightemiller,

The T-Zon is a cream for the "bad" spots like raw and or flaky skin areas. It isn't a "spray" that you would use over the entire body.