Vet is involved (came out yesterday soon after injury was seen and received “morning after” pictures this morning) and showed me, just looking for some advice and encouragement. Patient has been very well behaved and no major trouble with the treatments so far, but at 16.1 with me being under 5 feet…I need all the help I can get:o:sadsmile:
Find a taller person.
I kid, I kid. 
I have a horse that had to have eye drops due to conjunctivitis but he’s bit incredibly tall and was rather good about it. Can you stand on something? I just drag a mounting block over if I need to be taller (washing manes, clipping, etc.)
I’ve also taught said horse above to lower his head. I place my hand/slight pressure in his pole, and he lowers. Then treat. He’s always torn between resisting the medicine or getting the treat. Fortunately, he’s food driven and knows if he puts up with me for a few seconds, he’ll get his reward.
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To dose my big old horse, I stand on step stool --specifically for putting drops in eye: stroke the eye gently holding the uncapped goo in hand farthest from eye. Stroke the eye lashes gently again. Using thumb an forefinger, pull lower lid out and in making a little V in the lower lid. Release. Do it again, this time, add a drop of goo into the V. Release. The horse (at least mine) doesn’t object to having his lower lid pulled gently out and manipulated.
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I have a step stool…would be nice if I could train her to lower and tilt her head!!!
carrot pieces will train them real fast. say “head down” and hold carrot low, or as foxglove said press lightly on top of head. I do it as foxglove said, pull lower lid down. boom- done.
If above doesn’t work can you sit on a board fence and hold horse with halter?
It is just really hard and it takes a knack. The last one I did was an 11 hand pony and it was still hard! It seems too like the ointment comes out of the tube perfectly on applications 2-4 and then after that it is tricksier… And I always wish I had three hands.
Clicker training could be really helpful for training a horse to lower his head.
Kudos to you! I gave up with the eye drops and asked the vet if I could use an ointment instead. A friend told me her vet said to use a new tube of plain Neosporin. I asked my vet if that was an acceptable substitute and yay! he said I could. The ointment was sooo much easier to apply than the drops.
In addition to training your horse to behave, there is definitely a knack for applying liquid drops. I had the vet show me several times and when he did it, it was easy peasy. He would just open her eye, put in a drop, and done! But when I tried to do it, I was all thumbs and ended up with a struggle to get her head down, get her eyelid open and manipulate the eye drops… what a pain. It was like I didn’t have enough hands. On the other hand, using ointment was no sweat. I would rub her face and just slide the ointment filled finger over her eye and get some into the corner and it was pretty easy. I had the vet watch me do it to make sure I was getting enough into the eye – that was a big help.
@bt good luck. Eye ointments can be really difficult.
(Make sure your fingernails are short and your hands are very clean if you put ointment on your finger. I think straight-from-the-tube would be ideal but I didn’t trust myself not to poke her in the eye. My method worked fine.)
Use 1cc syringes to apply eye medicines, as recommended by equine opthamologists. That way each treatment is sterile, and you won’t risk contaminating your tube or bottle of medicine. If liquid, squirt a couple drops in the cap, and suck it up into the syringe. If ointment, pull the syringe apart and squeeze in about 0.25cc. Some syringes have wide enough tips to fit atop the ointment tube tip, and you can squeeze/withdraw the ointment from (sterile) tip to tip.
My trick for application: at the side of your horse’s face, slide your left hand under the halter cheekpiece. This gives you some control of the horse’s head, so if he tries to move away you can pull him toward you with your wrist. Use your thumb and index finger to open the eyelids, use thumb to pull down/out the lower lid and squirt medicine in the lower lid “pocket” with your right hand. The smoother you can be, avoiding poking the horse in the eyeball, the better the horse will tolerate the procedure on a repeated basis (multiple times a day for many days).
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I find ointment easier to use than drops, although I have used a 1ml syringe, without a needle, to administer drops. I always like to have an extra tube of ointment so I don’t have to worry about losing my one and only tube. I make sure my index fingernail is short and that my hand is very clean. A dab of ointment goes on the pad of my finger. I use my other hand to pull down the lower lid. Then, I place the dab of ointment on the inside of the lower lid, and let go of the lid. Next comes a carrot or a cookie, so eye Medina means treats.
I taught my mare to put her nose in my underarm when she had a cornea ulcer and needed eye drops every three hours the first couple days. Follow the cookie, my arm goes here, hold still, get the cookie.
I went through this when my mare was diagnosed with an ulcerated cornea. I had to put meds in her eye 3x a day and she was not willing to cooperate AT ALL…so in desperation I called the vet, and he installed a catheter. The tube ran down her mane so that I was injecting meds at the withers. She was just fine with that. I think without the catheter she would not have healed so easily.
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You can, and you should. All horses should lower their heads and allow their ears and head to be handled. Waiting until you have a medical issue and MUST fuss with the head is not the best time to teach this. I’m short too, and anything bigger than a pony is too tall for me to mess with. They all lower their heads to my level to get ears trimmed, halters removed, heads washed, etc.
Summer of 2016 my old man horse had a fungal infection in his eye. My vet and the ophthalmologist were both very realistic about treatment and suggested surgically implanting a lavage system since he needed 4 different meds 4 times a day. My vet went on vacation right when the ophthalmologist came, so her retired vet friend came to accompany the ophthalmologist. Retired vet, who also happened to be a family friend, INSISTED that the horse should get better and better about eye meds during the course of treatment if you were doing in correctly. I finally told him I needed that lavage system installed and that was it. He did come do it but good grief. Can you imagine sticking meds in your horse’s eye 16 times a day? WTF that was not happening.
I don’t have any helpful tips. Just do the best you can. If you have an ointment, sometimes you can switch to a liquid drop, which can be a bit easier.
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Over the winter, I saw a pretty neat system on a foal where they placed an external catheter + extension set to deliver meds into the eye. The extension set was secured to the halter so you could stand next to the foal and accurately push the drops without ever touching the eye. I don’t know how adult horses would tolerate such a setup; they’d probably just rub it until it ripped out.
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A friend had a big, fractious horse to do anything around his head, so she left him at the vets for them to treat the two times he needed eye care.
She said it was best for her horse and herself.
Our vet is rather tall and has a good technique so horses don’t even notice he is putting anything in their eyes.
If you can’t do that, add one more vote to get something to stand on.
We have stocks so it is easier to confine a horse that fusses until it learns to stand there nicely.
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My mare wore a specially made hood with a full cup over the eye for six weeks when she had the catheter. We rented it from the equine opthomologists hospital. I think you can purchase them from a place called Jorgensen Lab (pretty sure that was the place), or you could as of a few years ago.
The hood came with fleece pads round the cup for padding and ventilation holes. It fit pretty well with a bit of tweaking.
Agree catheter.
Oh, and those syringes apply medication withOUT the needles.
No offense to the original poster. But I just heard a story last week about a horse who became incresingly fractious when being orally dosed ace liquid. In desperation friend went to visit friend to show her how “bad” horse was.
Friend’s friend was leaving the needle on and wondering why horse was protesting getting jabbed in his mouth. :rolleyes:
Thanks all…again maresie is very good and does not try to move her head away. I just need to work on the knack…but she is an over achiever at removing fly masks…even the lycra ones
That’s what I described above with my mare - extension woven into her mane down to the withers. She wore a fly mask and was able to be turned out with the herd. It was truly a god send.
Come sit by me. My gelding had two episodes needing treatment. We did well the first time and the second involved 3 different meds 5 times a day for a few weeks. yikes… Cookies are your friend and I had no shame in making this horse briefly into a pocket mugger if it meant saving his eye. Even had him coming to me at 10am in pasture for treatment.
I put my arm up along his head with my elbow a little on his nose to hold and use edge of thumb to pull lower lid down and fingers to move upper lid up and med in. Immediate cookie insertion and wait the few minutes between.
I’m sure all horses are different but if they’re food motivated, and you’re practiced (hell, one of them was a messy cream and he still was like “cookie?”), it’s amazing what they’ll put up with. Good luck.
