I'm Feelin' Itchy

For a couple of reasons. 

Well, we are still waiting for spring to arrive, but there is hope in the forecast +13°C on Wedensday?! Lets hope so, there is a lot of snow to melt! I have been pretty tempted to trailer up to an indoor (only 10min away) but I honestly just don’t have the time with school- 1 hour to get organized and get there, 1 hour to ride or whatever, but the kicker is having to blow-dry him so he doesn’t freeze that night! So, I will continue to wait patiently (me, patiently? HA!) and dream about some saddle time!

We did have a little ‘excitement’ last week though, but not the good kind. I had gone to feed Traveller and he was fine, but on of the other horses decided to come up and see what we were doing. I hadn’t seen this horse for about a week and as he got closer I noticed something was wrong with his face…There were bloody/scabby patches where the hair was coming out and under his chin was all ripped-up and weepy—but it wasn’t bite marks, definitely not. Uh oh. Closer examination also revealed similar patches on his body.

I quickly called his owners who came and, when they saw him, called the vet.

Well, it turns out that it was lice! Yep, I probably should have realized that, but I just wasn’t thinking. The vet said all the damage was basically due to self-mutilation—him scratching and kicking at himself to try and relieve the itching. She gave him a shot of steroids and left us with some in a powder form to help him out.

Thankfully, horse lice are specific to them and humans/dogs can’t get it (as the owner said, “That’s the best news I’ve heard all day!”) but, because he had it, all the other horses most likely do too—crap.

So, we wormed them with an ivermectin and will do so again on Monday (10 days later) and they also got a good dousing of powder, which will happen again on Tuesday (10 days later). The only one that didn’t look ridiculous covered in white powder was Traveller, he just looked nice and clean!

The sucking louse- what our boys have (there is also a chewing
variety). Doesn't he look friendly?