Oh Poo...er I mean Poux!! Negrette's Skin Care Continued

I am very frustrated at this time because my efforts to get Negrette"s skin malady under control are not working. In French, poux is the word for lice. And after getting her cleaned up to the point that one could actually see better what was going on it became obvious that she is infested with lice. So much for my hope that her problem was only allergy related and not something contagious to other horses; although it isn't clear if the other two horses have been infected since they are not showing the signs or symptoms. Thank goodness that for me and the dog it is not contagious because horse lice are a species of lice that live only on horses.

To get rid of the lice the moisturizing salve had to be abandoned, and the nasty chemicals had to be employed. So I went to the vet clinic and bought the recommended product, here called butox. Not to be confused with botox. (Negrette may  be showing signs of age but her wrinkles are not the issue.) And then about ten days ago I did the treatment as best I could figure according to instructions, adding a capful of butox to one liter of water and applying with a sponge. The instructions say that with the life cycle of of lice it would be necessary to do the treatment again in 10-14 days, to kill the lice that will have hatched from the remaining eggs.      

Either there were a lot of eggs or the treatment didn't work at all, because as of today the lice are as bad if not worse than before. Negrette is losing hair again and there are open sores. I am feeling discouraged. Tomorrow an experienced horse person is coming to have a look and to help me to do the treatment again. And plans are in the works to get a veterinarian to come.

It is more complicated with horses to get veterinary care since normally you can't take the horses to the clinic.  I am trying to coordinate the appointment for the vet to come along with the other veterinary needs, the vaccinations and micro-chipping. I have just enough funds now to pay for all of that for the three horses, but I am still waiting for the owner to make the papers to give the horses to the non-profit Helping 3 Horses Association that I  recently created. This transfer of official ownership has to be done before they are micro-chipped. But the owner seems to be is hedging again and this is making me nervous. We have an appointment to do it Monday. I will let you all know how it goes.