Facial hair loss

[katykat]

My 5yr old warmblood gelding has suddenly started losing patches of hair on his face. Don't think it's seasonal alopecia as he has had his Summer coat for a while now. It looks a bit like rain scald but no lumps or scabs. It's in about 4 areas, more on one side of his face than the other and the skin is black underneath. Don't know if he's rubbing on the fence posts but no rough hair around it. The grass is very long in his field so possibly an allergy. Any ideas?

 

[millimoo]

Buttercups? There's an article about the toxicity of them in H&H mag this week. Apparently they can cause skin irritation

 

[popularfurball]

Is the hair coming out in clumps or is it being rubbed off?

 

[Rueysmum]

This always seems to happen to my silly old ancient TB at this time of year. He starts to look a bit bald around the forehead but is very thin skinned and it always grows back before too long.

It could be due to the buttercup season, but I always pull as many as I can out of his paddock. His is in the centre-ish of his forehead, but in the general scheme of things it's not a big issue and always grows back.

 

[MochaDun]

We have an elderly horse at our yard that over the last few summers has developed some sort of reaction the owner thinks to buttercups - he loses the hair all down the central part of his nose, he wears a full head fly mask with an extra piece she stitches on over this muzzle to keep the sun/UV off so it doesn't burn. Fingers crossed this year, so far, he's been fine, she gives him supplements to support his liver too.

 

[Cuffey]

Possibly mites in the grass?????

Seen this related to a batch of new hay being used which must have had active mites, again only the face affected

Agree buttercups a big possible as well

 

[katykat]

Hi. Thanks for the replies. I did consider buttercup poisoning, as I had read the article in HnH. He had just moved to a new paddock with really long grass, so the mite theory looks good. I will put his fly mask on and see if that helps. Thanks again.

 

[Brightbay]

Mine gets this... it coincides with the buttercups flowering. He gets a bit of hair loss at the sides of his face and under his jowls. I can control it to some extent by using a fly mask that comes right down under his jowl to stop the pollen getting on his face, but the weather's so funny this year that I can't leave the mask on all the time (torrential rain!) so he's getting a few baldy bits.

It does seem to improve as the summer goes on.