Wall eyes, are they more prone to sight problems?

[tabithakat64]

Are horses with wall eyes more likely to have problems with their eyes/sight? If so what and what would the symptoms be?

 

[no_no_nanette]

We have a cob who has a wall eye; he's now 12, and we've had him since he was rising 3 .... never had any problems with his sight, unless he has learnt to compensate really well! He's very successfully competed at BN and Discovery levels, and I think we would have got some hint by now if he did have issues ....

 

[Paint it Lucky]

I've always been taught they make no difference.

 

[Enfys]

I had heard that blue eyes were more susceptible to strong light and asked my Vet (who deals purely with equines) he said it didn't appear to in his experience. What he did say, and I have found with my own blue eyed mare, is that because many blue eyed horses have pink skin around their eyes they are more prone to sun and wind burn.
My mare wears sunblock and a mask summer and winter.Surprisingly I had more trouble with her skin in the winter because of the sunlight on the snow, it is blinding and even we wore shades on very bright days.

 

[Patches]

Wall eyes are completely the same as normal eyes in terms of the way the eye functions.

My horse has blue eyes. When she was vetted the vet did check to see whether she had a lack of pigment in the sclera (sp) as the area around her left eye is pink skinned. Lack of pigment in the third eyelid can make it more prone to cancers in this area.

 

[Patches]

Patches wears a mask here in the summer as you can't put sunblock around her upper and lower eyelid. Her nose is also fleshy too, so a face mask with a muzzle protection flap is great for her. Saves me a fortune on sun block, especially as she's a water baby. She likes nothing more than to dip her face in the water trough and slosh it about! I don't have to worry about re-applying sun block

 

[tabithakat64]

Thanks for the replies

, was just wondering as my boy has a wall eye. Thought it was probably another horsey myth that horses with wall eyes are more prone to sight problems and eye infections

 

[Bex7]

Bert has sunblock around his eyes this year, he loks like a complete eeejit!

Is it dangerous?

 

[sw123]

my grey in the pics has one and he's fine with it!

 

[Patches]

I don't know that it's dangerous, I just prefer not to use it so close to Patches eyes. If she moved whilst I was putting it on it could end up in her eye and I'm pretty sure that would sting.

I prefer to use a facial fly mask as they have UV protection for their eyes and stop flies too.