During morning chores yesterday, I noticed that Daisy’s left eye was swollen most of the way shut. I was upset but not surprised: the horses often have eye troubles during the summer months, when flies, tick, sweat, and other itchy things irritate their eyes.
I called the vet right away, and she was able to come out and look at Daisy a few hours later. In the meantime, I gave Daisy some bute and spent about 15 minutes or so applying a hot compress to her goopy eye.
When the vet arrived, she put some stain in Daisy’s eye and, sure enough, there was a scratch about 1 inch long and a 20th of an inch wide on her cornea. I think that it was caused by a sharp, stemmy blade of grass hitting her in the eye, which made me feel guilty for letting the pasture grass get as tall as it has. I guess it’s time to get out our new Caroni finish mower.
The vet gave me some stronger pain killer for Daisy because, as most of us know, eye injuries are very painful. She also gave me some antibiotic eye ointment to put in Daisy’s hurt eye three times a day for the next few days.
In order to apply the antibiotic to Daisy’s eye, I have to open her eye up wide, as if I were going to put a contact lens in it, but instead of inserting a contact lens, I squirt the ointment onto the inside of her lower eye lid. She doesn’t seem to mind it too much, bless her heart!
Her eye looks much better today, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.
