Update: I had the vet out, vet thinks just conjunctivitis from flies, left me eye antibiotics and said to keep her posted.
Update Sept 7. After finishing the treatment cycle both mares seen to be substantially recovered
Project mare who is generally healthy but a special petunia with shivering in the rain, getting big mosquito bites, etc. Lives in a stall with pine/spruce pelleted bedding, run-out with cedar hog fuel, turnout and rolling in sand pen, hay drops from the loft, all potential irritants but nothing in her lifestyle has changed recently. Hot weather and some insects around the barns, but no plague of eye flies or anything like that. Some times her eyes seem a tiny little bit teary at random, compared to my own horse.
Yesterday her right eye looked a bit irritated and weepy, but I looked closely and could not see any wounds or foreign objects or rips in her eyelid. She rolled and trotted and cantered in turnout/ free longhe, didn’t have any symptoms of general malaise.
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Today her eye is swollen up like a cartoon version of a black eye. She has it open a slit, but squeezes it tight when I try to get close and look at it. Runny but not pus. Not rubbing it, doesn’t seem too bothered. It’s really quite spectacular.
The other eye is perfectly fine. My first thought is an insect bite. But then I started worrying about things like conjuntivitis? Pink eye? There’s no other horse presenting symptoms that she could have caught it from.
She doesn’t like doctoring to put it mildly. I do have some sterile eye wash in my first aid kit but I’m not sure there’s anything in there that needs washing out.
Thoughts? I know eyes are serious, but on the other hand there’s often not alot to do but let it heal itself.
