Sunday, August 3, 2008

Dude and his big bump

Yesterday morning we got a call from the barn manager letting us know that Dude had a big bump, like an insect bite, on his neck. "Just letting you know," which is nice. Katie was heading out to visit a friend in NY, so I had barn duty. He was out in the pasture when I arrived and seemed perfectly happy, so I let him stay out while I went and mucked out their stalls and rode Bestie.

About an hour later I went out to get him to let him graze a while before bringing him in. He trotted toward me once I got in the field and I didn't notice anything, but once he got up close, yep, there was a BIG bump on the right side of his neck centered about halfway down from both his mane and his jawline. And I mean big ... probably about 3 inches wide and six inches long. It looked like a mosquito bite, raised and welty, but LARGE. Very strange. Everyone who saw it had never seen anything like it. It didn't feel hot and I couldn't find a bite area.

I gently scrubbed the area with Betadine and then rubbed Sore No More onto the area. About an hour later before I left, I rubbed Sore No More into it again. Left a note in the grain room to give him a scoop of bute in his dinner and breakfast, figured it couldn't hurt and might reduce the inflammation. It didn't seem to bother him at all, and he was eating his hay, drinking, and pooping normally. The poor guy, he also had a line of little bites right at the edge of his flymask along his jawline, and a few scattered bites on his barrel and rump. We've had a lot of rain lately so I don't know if it's a whole new crop of bugs out or what. He is very sensitive to bug bites.

Going over to the barn soon to check him out.

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