Sunscreen

After reading my blog about Ranger, someone asked;

"I have a question that is a off the subject, but I was wondering if you use any sunscreen on his nose? I have a palomino mare that has white skin on her nose, and every year it sunburns and blisters, I am trying a different sunscreen this year and I was wondering if and what you use?"

We have several horses that do sunburn or get what is called dew poisoning on their noses. Strangely enough Ranger isn't one of them, he has a lot of black pigment and he doesn't burn.

Ranger's mother however is a roan and though she doesn't burn on her face, she does occasionally burn on her back which is very painful for her. I do not know why she does this some years and not others, unless it is her diet or hormones. It isn't rain rot it is sunburn, her skin turns evenly bright pink along her back and she doesn't want to be touched.

We also have another roan mare that has a wide blaze and at times her entire blaze will burn but normally it is just her nose that burns. She hates lotion and we have a time treating her. I have found for some reason that any lotion will help almost immediately but I always try to treat them with something that has sunscreen in it. You don't have to buy the most expensive sunscreen or even something specifically for horses, we have had good luck with everything we have tried.

I used an Aloe Vera pump spray with sunscreen on my hard to treat mare last year and found that she would tolerate a spray much better than having anything rubbed on her tender nose. It did a great job and by the next day we saw amazing results.

Goat Milk Lotion

Yes, I know that I didn't blog yesterday but I had already started this one when the storms came through and I had to shut off my computer. Then we lost our electricity, so I never finished it or got it posted. The following is yesterday's blog.

I have a lot of goat's milk in my freezer that I need to get rid of before my goats come fresh again. So I have decided to make lotion, cleanser and soap. I started my new adventure today.

I purchased most of the ingredients that I needed from that great Chinese distributor, Walmart, except for the Beeswax and Goat's Milk. I bought a Stick Blender that was made in China, they only had one choice available, so it got pitched in the old cart pretty quickly without much thought. They had Coconut Oil that is a dietary supplement that was actually manufactured in Florida. They had Spring Valley Vitamin E Oil for the skin that was manufactured in California. They also had some Aloe Vera Gel that wasn't exactly what my recipe called for because it wasn't 100% Aloe Vera, it was an Aloe Vera Gel for sunburn, but I didn't think it would hurt anything because it is for the skin and it was manufactured in Florida.

Here is the recipe:

1/8 tsp. borax
1/4 cup cold goat's milk
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 Tbsp. beeswax
1/2 cup Aloe Vera gel
1 tsp. Vitamin E oil

Heat borax and milk in microwave to boiling. Melt coconut oil and beeswax together in microwave but remove when oil gets hot and beeswax is not completely melted, the hot oil will melt the beeswax with a little time and stirring. Slowly add this to the borax/milk mixture using a stick blender. Add Vitamin E oil and cool to room temperature. Next add Aloe Vera to the cooled lotion and blend one final time.

I had to buy the beeswax on eBay.

We found this recipe to be way too greasy, but it may be because I used the wrong type of Aloe Vera Gel. This would make a great massage oil though.

I plan to order some pure Aloe Vera and try this recipe again because it is so easy. The hardest part was shaving the beeswax