Call it what you want

Wet season - Flies and Sore eyes

So year after year I have found that when station horses come in after spending the wet season fending for themselves (2-4 months or even longer depending) there is always a few that have eyes that look very sore, swollen and red.

The below pics are taken from the internet to show you what I'm talking about.

Through my observations I have noticed that it's typically the "very well bred" horses.

So the ones that have the big name stallions in their pedigree. To me that tells its own story.
Typically those well bred horses have numerous crosses to the same stallion.

They call that line breeding, but let's call a spade a spade - it's inbreeding.

Horses all started out as fat little bush brumbies or forest ponies at some stage. I read a great article about this a little while ago, it was written by Dr Emmaline Hill a geneticist and shared on Facebook. Anyway it was a great read, well worth searching for and having a read about genetic if you come across it. That article helped me to make this link between the 'well bred horses' and the hardy no name bred horses and such eye flair us.

Now all horses regardless of breed will have flair us with the annoying flies bothering them during the wet season - so how can we treat it at home.

I spent a long time as a vet nurse and one of the first things I ever remember being taught was

- The solution to pollution is dilution-

So flushing the eyes is the first step.
It can be tricky and there is quite a knack to be able to flush eyes well, especially if your like me and don't usually have anyone around to help, but doing anything is better than doing nothing a boss once told me.

If there is enough interest I will post a video how to do this by yourself but please remember you will need to take your time, if you don't want to spend you time you may have to spend your money for someone else to fix it.

So start where you are with what you got and do the best you can.

Water, good old water, we all have that. You can use a small syringe to flush the eye.

The very first vet I worked for would always recommend cool tea water as a go to for all clients, before ointments. Yep soak a tea bag in some water and use that. Wipe the eye or flush it if you can.

Then as my nursing skills increased so did my knowledge, leading me to treat horses at the University of Queensland via an SPL. I small tube that is placed under the eye lid so that ointment can be applied, frequently and often for treatment of serve eye issues such as ulcer and the likes. I worked as a night nurse and these treatments were hourly! So it quite literally pays to use your time wisely and check your horses eyes as often as you can.

Now while that practice is still widely used and at times the only option, I want to show you what you can do right here and right now.

So if you notice your horses eyes, looking sore, weeping, your horse seems to be squinting a bit, then nip it in the bud now.

So that leads me to my facebook post about the Joyweed and Wormwood eye wash I have made.

I haven't yet come across any negative or bad reports when using Joyweed, internally or externally, in any amount. I read something the other day about how natural products haven't killed anyone. If they had - boy oh boy would the world hear about it! So just like prescription drug over doses, it is 100% user error. So always seek advice if your not sure, its ok to ask for guidance. Even vets and Dr's discuss treatment options on a daily basis.

Wormwood on the other hand is strong stuff. But when used in small doses and short periods of time there is no ill effects, but again just ask if unsure.

So for my brew I ended up adding a lot of water after I mushed it up. Because like I said, the solution to pollution is dilution. I was just making my three little bears porridge... but for one bear... if you know what I mean... it takes time to get the brew just right.

But as long as I a flushing the eye then its going to be helping.

Now if you cant get the eye rinsed for love nor money - don't worry.

I have another trick up my sleeve...

Accupressure points -

Accupressure points work on Chinese medicine principles. The body has a nature flow and sometimes that flow gets blocked, by many factors.

Sometimes we don't even need to know straight away what those factors are, we just want to help the symptoms. Now go gentle, no need to pretend your finger is an acupuncture needle, its simply massaging a general area of the right (offside) front leg.

These points on the leg are surrounded and connected to veins and nerves, and they are blocked some how, again I don't need to go into the major explanation on how it works, I can but I know you just want me to get to the point.

So by massaging the general area including any and all veins that you can see on the inside of the horses leg from above the knee to below it, right down to the hoof if you want, you will be helping to open those pathways. You are working near pressure points that relate to the chest, head neck, face, mouth and most importantly relaxation. This can be much easier to do than trying to convince your instant giraffe that you will not be poking him in his already sore eye.

Then give their face a gentle massage, even just gentle light tickles where ever they will let you touch. The face is full of nerves and receptors. By relaxing the surrounding muscles, it can help relax to the eyes and jaw, just like the leg massage helped. How good does it feel when someone massages your sore neck ever so gently. It relaxes you right, so it might just work on your horse too. Just try it, see what they think. But always go at the horses speed, like I said before, spend your time instead of spending your money to help this issue.

So this method is associated with the meridians or energy points within the body. These are better known as complementary therapies, but have a very profound affect on general health and wellbeing of both horses and humans alike.

Similar to other equine body practices such as general massage, reiki, lymphatic drainage, Kinesiology, vagus nerve therapy, chiropractic work, the lists go on. As long as you are working with the body and not against it and have some good sound knowledge of the basics you will be right - of not stop and ask for guidance from someone. It can get as in-depth or as easy as you want to go.. So for now lets just go easy.

- The only silly question is a question not asked -

Another thing I was taught very early in my vet nurse career.