I'M IMPRESSED.......!!!

Those of you that know me personally, probably already know, it doesn't take a whole lot to amuse me. I have been blessed with curiosity, (thank you Daddy) and usually try to figure out a better way to do something......especially if it's something wasteful and/or messy.

The vet salve made with nitrofurazone and DMSO is messy.  If you scoop it up with a gauze pad, you usually get more than you want, "ie" wasteful and and more than you want usually ends up messy.  So I got the brilliant idea of putting it in a 60cc syringe with an end cap.

I'm so impressed with my "fix" I have to share it.  I can envision all sorts of salves than could probably be dispensed this way, as long as they are "runny".  There is one small problem.......getting the salve into the syringe.  This picture shows the 2 instruments I'm using.  The spoon is a tad too wide and the plastic knife is a tad too narrow, which is why I'm on a hunt for a tongue depresser.  Ellie in Florida said they have them at WalMart, 25 to a package.  Nice to know, but it would take me a LONG time to use that many, since I'm not a "use once and throw away" type of gal, goes back to that wasteful thing.  John has been to the doctor recently and I forgot to tell him to ask for one.  It was his primary care physician, which might actually have one.  Most of the specialists probably wouldn't unless it had something to do with their specialty.  His next appointment is with his gastrointerologist.  I know that isn't spelled right, but my spell checker isn't any help.....!!  Probably won't have one, but I'll send John with the request anyway. 

I'm down to only doctoring Rosie and Quilla, still checking the others each morning, but so far they are doing great.....!!!   

John is almost back to normal, except he doesn't like to kneel on that knee.  Yesterday he was working on my race car for next year.  One thing that has to happen is the key start has to be disabled, so we can start it with a button.  The wiring is inside the dashboard.  At his mature age he doesn't bend as well as he use to and in order to get underneath the dash, he had to take the steering wheel off and take the seat out.  Even then he said he got under there and almost couldn't get out.  It took a lot of squirming and using the roll cage to pull enough to get out.  I guess I'd have found him at feeding time, but by that time, he probably wouldn't have been very happy.   He did get the wiring out and the button installed, which is a good thing.  If he hadn't have accomplished his mission, he would have really been unhappy, I would imagine.....!!!  LOL

TIME FOR A PLAN "B" I GUESS

Every summer the same donkeys have skin problems.  I'm sure it has something to do with poor immune systems.  Not all the sores are the same, some are big dried scabs on their legs and shoulders, generally.  Some are oozy serum wounds, that grow as the serum drips down the leg.  Some don't bother the hair, others make the hair fall out in patches.  And right now I have 3 of them with dried black hairless areas on their lower legs.  I've always thought the stable flies caused the sores, but am beginning to wonder if the sore starts and the flies follow.  I know stable flies are vicious whether it's before or after. 

It would be great if you could take them to a vet and they say, it's this or that and here's what will fix it.  Of course that doesn't happen.  Since there are so many different looking situations, they generally have to do a biopsy or scraping for analysis and a lot of times it comes back without a definitive answer.  So they throw something at it, if it works great, if not, we'll try something else..........Very frustrating.  Sun does seem to make it worse, that's just my theory.

Years ago we had to take a donkey to a vet in Tucson, no local vet available for a skin condition.  The vet gave me a homemade remedy of nitrofurazone and DMSO. Nitrofurazone has been out of favor the last few years, because of it's reputation as a cancer causing substance. And DMSO has been used for years by people with arthritis without the backing of the FDA. 

In this case the two were mixed together, using the DMSO as a carrier to help the nitrofurazone be readily absorb into the skin. 

The vet that came out earlier this summer for Boaz's legs that had sloughed off most of the skin, did a biopsy, and it came back as bacteria infection.  She gave me a salve that looked suspiciously like what I used years ago.  So I asked her if it was nitrofurazone and DMSO and she said yes, with a couple of other things added.  I don't know what the other stuff was, but I am trying these two things as of this morning to see if it works. 

Other than skin problems, everyone else seems to be doing great.  Although I'm afraid my fly masks aren't going to make it to the end of fly season at the rate the "fur" kids are tearing them up.  It's bad enough when the geldings get to playing, of course the fly masks are the 1st thing to get grabbed.  But now Saddik, the dog likes to join in the fun.  He thinks of Pancho as his personal friend and takes his mask off almost every day.

The mesquite beans aren't all gone, but almost......!!!  They are back to having access to Burroland all the time except at feeding time.  There's a lot of desert grass over there they really like, but it's getting pretty depleted too.  They have been on starvation rations for weeks and haven't really cared, it was almost more effort to get them to come in for feeding, than it was worth.  But the last few days they've been a lot more interested in hay, and some of them are running the pens when John lets them out, to see if anyone left anything to eat.  For the most part no one is leaving anything and John has upped everyone by 1/2 a pound of hay.   He's not going to be in any hurry to get them back up to normal.  As long as they don't start getting frantic, which I don't think they will, he'll just slowly start adding hay.