scabby nose and lips on white muzzle

[Jericho]

Our new little rescue pony who has lots of white on his face and pink lips and nose is getting lots of scabs and nicks all over his muzzle, probably from the sun/rumaging in the hedges / flies so I am helping this with liberal amounts of sunblock and then sudocrem at night to soften the scabs. I have also bought a nose net to see if that helps a bit.

The main problem is that he has very old man wrinkly lips especially in the corners and then these are splitting and looking a bit sore (NB this is nothing to do with his bit as he is hardly ridden (and he obviously cant now because of the cracked lips) and even when I got him a month or so ago his lips were very wrinkly just not cracked completely) Up to now I have been putting sudocrem on to help but what else can I do to help him?

Any ideas appreciated?

(Cross posted in NL)

 

[horsecrazy25]

Might be completely different but my friends pony had scabs all over his nose and they tried everything and just couldn't work out what it was in the end i think it was something in the ground which was making him have an a reaction to it. x

 

[cptrayes]

Is he getting worse with sunblock? One of mine did and then I suddenly realised that he was allergic to it! And sudocreme too, so I had to use a sunshade on his nose. I made one but you can buy them to attach to a headcollar. He was better in days.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

It's sunburn (don't dare put "hun" after someone objected) but if the pony is rescued be aware that acute photosensitivity can be an indication of ragwort poisoning. Acute photosensitivity is sunburn only really bad. The ragwort damaged liver loses the ability to break down the green plants that the horse or pony eats and those compounds end up circulating in the blood stream. So the entire horse acts like a huge leaf and the horse burns very badly, most visibly of course on pink or unpigmented skin or on skin where there is little or no hair covering. Factor 50 or higher should take care of it but the problem is that it rubs off in a couple of hours. The only safe way to protect a ragwort poisoned horse or pony from savage sunburn is to stable them 9am to 6pm, from about May to August.