FIXED FLY MASKS

While I was gone to Missouri, Michele was busy fixing fly masks.  She and her husband came by this morning to deliver her work.  She obviously is meticulous, when I took them to her, some of them were probably beyond saving.  

Obviously she loves a challenge, she even wove in the eye area where they like to rub, if they have itchy eyes.  I usually have to throw those away, even if the rest of the mask is good, since the main reason for the masks, is to protect the eyes.  Thank you Michele, now maybe we can make it thru fly season without having to get more new masks.  

Yesterday our grandson married his sweetheart Rebecca.  JR already has a son named Hunter, who is 2 years old.  Rebecca brings Kyler to the family, which is almost the same age as Hunter.  Right now JR is trying to get full custody of Hunter, which would be great if the boys could grow up together full time, rather than Hunter popping in and out.  It looks like it might happen, although you never know what the system will do.  

The donkeys are all doing pretty good, doctoring is down to almost nothing.  Boaz's mouth finally healed, unfortunately his 3 crusader fly masks seem to spend most of their time missing.  John spent most of this morning trying to find at least one.  He did find one, but unfortunately it is in need of Michele's TLC before it can be used.  Sigh!  We're still having some skin issues on Boaz, Coquette, and Cisco, especially.  I'm using Underwood Horse Medicine on them and it's doing the job, IF that's a big IF the flies don't manage to get thru the medicine barrier.  I swear the flies right now are really vicious.  Unfortunately stable flies will not go to the fly traps and of course they are the ones that make bloody legs below the knee.  In the picture of the habronema in the above link, I would never let the larvae get that big, without putting ivermectin on topically and pulling the little dead bodies out with tweezers, vets prefer to debride, which makes a bigger wound area.  

We're doing pretty good with polo wraps and for those that have flies above the knee, men's crew socks.  Penny has to have both hind legs wrapped, which only lasts a day or so, before the wraps come loose and we find her dragging a polo wrap behind her.  She has gotten real good about letting John retrieve the polo wrap off her leg, but still will not let him put a halter on her without being in the squeeze.  Donkeys that have been abused, develop definite ideas on what is allowed and what isn't.  We usually work around their psychosis rather than "make" them do something.  They probably have a good reason for their thoughts on the matter.