A Cup Of Tea And A Horse Eye Cure All In One

Horse eye problems can soon become bad infections, so make yourself a cup of tea and cure him at the same time


I must be mad. In fact, I know I am. Yet another lame duck, or horse this time, added to the collection of misfits that I am already keeping a worthy eye on.

Out walking the dog last week, I come across a lovely friendly horse in a small field along a busy road and I just had to go check him out. I had nothing to feed him, but he just came over to say hallo and I had to have a good look at him to see if he was OK. Whilst stroking that velvety muzzle I noticed that he had an eye problem, and what was worse he was smothered in flies that he could not keep away. Of course, no evidence of a fly mask or fly sheet or any other measure to keep those parasites away from him so they must have been driving him mad, if his twitching was anything to go by.

What made matters worse was that he was in a small field that had previously had cows in it, who had naturally left a generous coating of manure, and to this he had added his own contribution, so the flies were literally having a field day.

I am not adept at recognizing eye problems, so I was not sure if he had scratched it in some way and it had become sore and infected, or if he had an infection such as conjunctivitis. Making a mental note to keep an eye on the poor soul, I woke the now sleeping dog and walked on basking in the disapproval of my dog’s most disdainful stare. C’est la vie; I am quite used to that by now.

Well that was that horse’s lucky day because I next ran across a lovely woman from the local riding stable and asked if she knew who owned the horse. She didn’t but I told her that I was worried about his eye and she gave me two really good tips about how to deal with it plus a present for him. They are really neat and so simple, that I just have to pass them onto you.

No sign of an owner, and no houses in sight to even ask, so I had decided to try my hand at a cure myself as I had no idea how long he might have been suffering.

Next day, off I went to check my new patient (no dog this time as I would need both hands for the major surgery I had in mind). Wondering if he would even let me try out my treatments. He was very friendly but that’s a long way from allowing a stranger to treat you. However, I had taken precautions. I had a bag of bribery with me, and he smelt it before I even reached him.

Complete with apples and carrots I tempted him into letting me have a closer look at his eye, and it wasn’t getting any better, so I would have to operate.

I cleaned the eye and the discharge off his nose with a damp sponge I had taken with me, and I was careful not to let any water run in his eyes, so he seemed very relaxed with this. This also told me that he was used to being handled so I was hopeful that my next procedure would go as smoothly.

So far so good.

That kind lady told me that she had been looking after horses for 30 years. She told me to try either of these two simple remedies:

The same over-the-counter conjunctivitis cream that a human would use, or
a simple tea bag.

It amused me greatly to think of having my morning tea whist preparing a horse remedy at the same time; but she said it really worked and that’s experience speaking as she has used it herself a great many times. Then she did the horse and me a great kindness – she gave me an old fly mask to put over his eyes to keep the flies off my remedy.

I had decided to go equipped with both solutions and see which one I could succeed in applying.

Well, I would like to say that it was quite a challenge, but that wouldn’t be true because that lovely horse let me treat him with just a few shakes of the head. I got the lotion right in his eye rather than all down his nose, so I did not need to use my specially prepared tea bag at all. The fly mask in place, I left him with the rest of the bribe to enjoy his afternoon in peace.

2 days later, two more applications of the magic potion and all is well. My only complaint is that I did not get to try out that lovely homespun cure with the tea bag. So please, if you get to try it out do please let me know if it works.

In the meantime, I will keep an eye on my new charge, until I can find the owner and persuade them to take better care of my new friend.


From the author:
I have written a book on horse health , as I firmly believe that prevention is the best cure. If you are regularly checking your horse to see that he’s in tip top condition then at least you will know that any accident has not been caused or worsened by an existing health issue. Check out this book here.  

My site at www.anyhorsebackriding.com has a lot of other useful tips and information and the back issues of my News Letters can be found here

The list of my other articles can be found here
 

© 2006 Roger Bourdon