Update:

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The patient is improving, i.e. the eye swelling has gone down considerably. I made a cloth pad and sewed it inside her fly mask to put some space between the mask and the wound, and that is working out well. Her vision is fine and she doesn't seem to be in any discomfort. The big question now is whether the cut will heal together, or, more likely, how much of a gap will be left in the edge of her upper eyelid. You see, a previous (worse) injury has already left this eye susceptible to problems.

How it happened is the million dollar question. There are trees in the pasture, some with sharpish branches; also some pretty thorny boysenberry brambles. I am extremely careful with nails and fence wire, going to great lengths to bend any loose wire ends into non-sharp tiny loops. There is no barbed wire, only smooth electric fence. My suspicion is that she did it on the handle of her grain bucket. It is hung in her stall, and some time ago she whomped into it and bent the handle somewhat. It looks to me that there is a very slight protrusion of the metal handle where it attaches to the bucket, and there was some blood on the stall partition quite near it. ? I'll never know, but I have replaced the bucket.

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This horse needs to wear a helmet. She is very "heady" (can send you flying if you don't watch out for her), often making sudden swings of her head or trying to rub an itchy spot. She doesn't know her own strength and assumes I am a scratching post. If something startles her, she could easily bang her head and possibly cause a tear like the one we're dealing with now.

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One sweet aside: she's loving all the attention. I gently massage her eye before putting the ointment in it. That gets her relaxed and she closes it, which is the only way I can sneak the medicine in. Yesterday when I finished giving one of the doses, she nibbled on my shoulder in an affectionate gesture.

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.......................................Heidi's "good" eye last winter

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Heidi is supposedly half Morgan and half Quarterhorse. I do not see the latter (and in fact think maybe there's a bit of the Budweiser Clydesdale in her family tree), but she does have the Morgan "hot-bloodedness" which can make for excitement. Imagine a 1000 pound fraidy-cat... If anything startles her, you must be ready to jump out of her way in a hurry. She's kind hearted, but a bit of a squirrel.

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Time will tell, but so far she's making reasonably good progress in healing.

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Thanks to all of you who have expressed concern. I appreciate your kind words. Heidi would thank you too if she could. Maybe you could stop by and be nibbled.

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............................A roll in the pasture last month

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"Oh oh... now they'll think I just sit around all day..."