Grass / Baby warts on a 13 year old!!

[flyingfeet]

My boy has been out with the babies, one of whom is going through baby warts at the moment

However this morning I noticed he now has 6 small warts on his muzzle! He is a bit old for this, but will they just drop off like they do on the youngsters?

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Warts can be very contageous and I expect the juvenile warts on the babies were quite active as the babies' immune system will still be immature and unable to zap the warts virus. You should find that they don't last long on your older horse but if they do it might be worth casting a critical eye over his health. It may be that his own immune system is a little weakened at the moment. To be honest, if he's otherwise fit and well, I'd expect his own body to sort the warts out.

 

[Millyard Rejects]

Hadnt seen warts for years -only had older horses!
But last summer all 3 of my youngsters had them in varying degrees.
They had all come from less than perfect starts in life and their immune systems were shot.
I started feeding earlier than I would have done and in their feed just added some liquid vitamin booster just to help their systems fight the virus.
any horse can get them if they are below parr but is normally seen in younsters when weaned and moved to different yards and mixed with others of unknown health. But are very contagious.
However if the group your horse is in has them then they often build up an immunity to the wart virus and in theory shouldnt get them again. But I suppose this will depend on health levels and mixing of stock?
I also used "bye wart" from the chemist as a topical treatment-these helped ease any sore warts.It was also advised to allow a few to be pulled off the horse so to get the horses system working to get rid of the remaining warts.

 

[alsiola]

The reason that warts tend to occur in young horses is that once they have resolved the horse is strongly immune to them. Most likely your horse was never exposed to them as a youngster. Same reasoning as why chicken pox mostly occurs in children, not in adults. Likewise, an adult who has never had chicken pox can still potentially become infected.
There is a small possibility that a weakened immune system could allow warts to infect a horse that was previously immune, but in the absence of any other signs of a problem, I think this is fairly unlikely.