i think my horse is allergic o the buttercups...

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keekee

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Over the last few weeks my horse has been getting fly bite looking lumps and sore cracked skin around her muzal area i didnt treat them as i thought they were fly bites but now think she is allergic to somthing in the grass please tell me if this sounds likely ?
 
One of my boys is allergic to buttercups, they are very poisonus but they give him a mud fever like rash on the backs of his legs - not had any on his muzzle though :)
 
I've seen loads of horses with flaky sore looking skin around their muzzles, kind of looks like sunburn but it's not. I've always been told it's caused by buttercups, and i know they are not good for horses! Not sure what you can do about it tho, sorry!
 
Plaster him in sudocream or something similar - my pale nosed cob is allergic to grazing in amongst the buttercups - thought it was some form of sun burn first year - but gets it in 100 per cent cloud cover so narrowed it down to the buttercups. Slathering him in a protective cream does the trick.
 
Buttercups can cause quite bad reactions in horses and ponies. They are potentially quite harmful if eaten in large quantities which isn't usual as they apparently have a very bitter taste. However if your field is covered and it is difficult to avoid eating them then this would explain the marks you are describing on your horses muzzle. If you google it there is quite a lot of info about buttercups on the web.
 
Horses shouldn't be grazed on a field with buttercups - and all will react in some way to them.

You need to take the horses off the pasture so that you can eradicate the buttercups and rest the field.
 
Buttercups contain a chemical that increases horse's reaction to sunlight - so yes, your pink skinned nose not only looks like it but actually has sunburn.

If they were truly poisonous my old mare would have shuffled off years before she did at the ripe old age of 33 - she used to make a bee-line for anything yellow ( I can remember her ruching off from turnout to eat the only two dandylions to venture forth - and she checked out whether I was still watching her like a naughty child!) her fields were sprayed for buttercups but she would stick her head through the rails to eat any she could reach.
 
So far my pink-nosed boy hasn't had any reaction to the buttercups in our field.
His sheath has little black marks on it, but previous owner said that is caused by fly bites so I need to start putting sudocrem on that.

We have quite a few buttercups in our field (not growing everywhere, but there are patches of them) and it's a bit worrying as I've heard they're somewhat poisonous to horses. But there's not much we can do about it at the moment and they don't seem to be even trying to eat them.
 
I had the same thing a couple of years back with a coloured horse, covered in bumps on his body, sore nose and on odd days his legs would blow up to an enourmous size, after lots of research I came to the same conclusion - buttercup allergy. Like one of the previous posters mentioned there is a link to the buttercups and the pink skin, it makes the skin more photosensitive and causes a reaction very similar to mud fever.

I solved it by getting a UV resistant fly rug, UV boots, Cashel ones I think and a full fly mask..... looked ridiculous but sorted him out.

Unfortunately there had been several vets visits before I worked the problem out myself ouch!
 
There can be a link to buttercups, and they can make horses photosensitive. Not all horses that eat in a field with buttercups will have problems.
I thought one of mine had a buttercup problem until we moved to a place where there were none and he still had a sore and scabby nose. I sent a photo to his holistic vet, Tim Couzens, he sent some little white pills and said it was some sort of allergy, he didn't know what. Within a week it was healing up. I've fed the same pills this year from about mid February and not a sign of problems. He's had a sore nose every summer for about 5 years before this.
 
My girl suffers from photosensitivity brought on by buttercups. My YO very kindly sprayed her fields for buttercups after we found out, so the three fields up by the yard have hardly any buttercups in them. There are one or two fields that she hasn't sprayed and that get quite a lot of buttercups but L just doesn't go out in them and stays up by the yard until the buttercups have gone over. We also bring her in if the weather is hot and sunny. Suncream also helps but when it is very hot we tend to bring her in just to be on the safe side :)
 
My arab as a kid was allergic to buttercups, buttercup burn I think people call it. Makes them all scabby around their chin/nose area. I used to use protocon cream I think on it. Or sudocreme.
 
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