Lately there had been swarms of gnats around Lizzie's head and ears when I brought her in, and her ears had gotten almost as fly-bitten as they were when I bought her. They were itching so badly that she had been rubbing her head and neck against the fence posts and gate even though I had been trying to keep ointment on there to protect them. So since that didn't seem to be working, I got both Lizzie and Bug fly masks with ears.
I don't know what kind of ears most horses have, but the size of the ears on those masks look more like they belong on a donkey than a horse -- and those masks are both "cob" size, not even "horse." Good grief! But on the plus side, those ears are so huge that they don't even touch the inside of their ears at all, so I guess that's a good thing.
And now that she's wearing that mask, Lizzie hasn't been rubbing her head against any fences or anything anymore, so . . . success!
Duke has been wearing a fly mask for the last couple years, but his face is longer than most of the masks so his nose still gets burned. So I ordered him a larger size -- "standard bred" size -- hoping it would come all the way down and protect his entire muzzle. Well, it does that. But it's also absolutely enormous everywhere -- more like a draft horse than a standard bred if you ask me. We'll have to see if he will leave it on with that much play in there or not.
Nice plaid color with his coat, though, isn't it? And even though the thing actually touches the ground when he grazes, it doesn't really seem to bother him.
And I can take his mask off at night since it's just to prevent sunburn. But the thing about using those masks on the girls to protect their ears is that theirs have to stay on at night. It does make it a bit more difficult to see at night, I think. But then I don't suppose there are many things for them to run into in that pasture anyway.
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