Hot, hot, hot . . .

I'm so sick of dealing with this heat.  I feel absolutely exhausted all the time and I'm accomplishing absolutely nothing.  Fed the horses this morning and cleaned up Bug's ear, then came home and lay down and didn't wake up until almost 3!  Good grief! 

Not the least bit sure what to do about Bug's ear abscess.  We took the drain tube out last weekend, but although those holes have closed up and it isn't draining any more, the swelling it isn't getting any smaller either - in fact, it's the size of a large egg again.  See the white thing sticking out of her right ear below? 

The thing seals off her ear canal almost completely.   Check the blog for 7/31 and you can see that the size is increasing again.

It isn't hurting her, though - at least she lets me clean it up and put new meds on there every day -- she doesn't even react if I push on it.  (And it doesn't ooze when I push on it, either.)



But I was watching her today after I turned her back out and she did shake her head periodically for a while, though I guess that could have had to do with the new coating of ointment I put on there since she wasn't doing it before I cleaned her up.

She also seemed to me to be carrying her head just a tiny bit tilted, though. 

I don't know -- I guess as long as it doesn't appear to be hurting her, and as long as it isn't draining or getting quickly larger, I'll give it another week or two and see what happens.  I do NOT want that vet to use a twitch on her again, so I think it will probably cost me $500 or more to take her in and have her sedated or anesthetized while they do what needs done, so I guess I need to wait long enough to be darned sure we need to do that. (I HATE not having money.)

As for Duke, keeping him in the shady pen during the day has healed the burns on his face,

but for some reason he seems to be losing weight.  He has never been thin enough to see even the slightest outline of his ribs, but now I can. 

So I've upped the amount of his feed.  If that doesn't take care of it, I guess I'll have to go back to putting a fly mask on him to protect his face and quit putting him in the pen during the day since that MAY be what's upsetting him.  Sigh.  (They need to come HOME.)