11/16/2021
Sheath cleaning is an important part of equine husbandry that often gets overlooked. Most horses should have a thorough sheath cleaning every 6-12 months. A thorough cleaning will also allow you to examine the sheath and p***s for any signs of neoplasia such as sarcoids, melanomas, and squamous cell carcinoma, habronemiasis or infections. Mares can also accumulate dirt and bacteria in between their teats, and can benefit from a biannual cleaning.
Six-Step Sheath Cleaning and Bean Removal
1 – Sedate for safety. Speak to a veterinarian about sedation. A properly sedated horse will relax and hang all their parts out, which helps prevent injury to the handler and cleaner. Even sedated horses can kick, so keep an eye on the horse and operate from a safe location.
2 – Consider hygiene. Horses carry medically resistant staphylococcus infections that can pass to humans, while humans carry diseases that can transfer to horses, so it’s important to prevent disease transfer when handling a horse’s sheath. The best way to maintain hygiene is to wear disposable gloves and use the clean hand/dirty hand routine described below.
3 – Prepare. Collect a bucket of warm water, a bottle of liquid Ivory™ dish soap, cotton squares, and some disposable gloves. Put the gloves on and some cotton in the water. Decide which will be the clean hand and which will be the dirty hand. Put the clean hand in the bucket of water to collect a piece of cotton. Pass the cotton from the clean hand to the dirty hand, and put the dirty hand in the sheath. Once the cotton is dirty, discard it and repeat.
4 – Rinse, lather, rinse. With water and cotton, use the clean hand/dirty hand procedure to remove flaky debris that’s easily dislodged. Once the loose debris is removed, place a small amount of soap in the dirty hand and use it to degrease the sheath and break up more debris. Repeat as necessary. It’s important to maintain the area’s natural flora, so the sheath does not need to be spotlessly clean. Once it’s clean enough to inspect, rinse the sheath with warm water to rid the area of soap.
5 – Inspect and remove beans. Visually inspect and manually feel for a bean (hard lump) in the diverticulum at the end of the p***s. If a bean is found, lever it out of the space. At this point, veterinarians will also inspect and palpate the sheath, prepuce and p***s for tumours, abrasions, and injury.
6 – Pat dry with clean, damp cotton.
Information borrowed from totalequinevets.com
