weighty matters

The new boys have settled in well.  But not without a couple of minor issues.  Dougal is a little chap and there isn't a lot of grass. He gets sugar beet and Camelibra twice a day, and eats his share from the hay bags, but we wanted to be sure he was making progress so decided to weigh him.  We have never done this before so it was a bit of an adventure for us all.  Simple.  Grab the boy and stand on the bathroom scales.  We expected all sorts of fun and games. But no.  He was as good as gold. The results?  +4Kg from his pre-delivery weigh in.  That'll do lad , that'll do.

I expected him to run off afterwards and hide behind his pal but he jumped back onto the scales himself, keen to show Hamish how it should be done.

How come I weighed 3/4 more a moment ago?

Hamish, had managed to pick up an eye infection. We arranged to pick up some anti-biotic eye drops from the vet and began a course of treatment.  After a few days this was slowing the progression of the infection but not really getting on top of it.

We irrigated the eye with some saline, well ok, a Sainsbury's eye wash! - (Great squeezy bottle with a directional jet allows you to aim where you need it).  We saw the end of a bit of grass or hay but failed to get hold of it and it disappeared under his bottom lid not to be seen again.   So the vet was called.

The grass was showing a by a millimetre or so and Chris the vet was able to get a hold of it with his finger nails and pulled.  It was 3-4cm long with a decidedly yucky bit at the end !  I'll spare you the picture!  Chris added some stain to the eye so we could see any injury and indeed there was some ulceration where the grass had been.  Also there was no sign of the stain flowing through his tear duct so we attempted to flush this with a small flexible soft end on a syringe loaded with sterile water.  Not really sure that worked. We continued the drops for a couple of days but they were now causing irritation so were  discontinued.  The eye  was perfectly dry the next morning and we have seen no sign since. 

Dry Eyed Hamish