a mule with a sore head

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Hi! I've been lurking here for almost two years. My mule needs help.

The mule has worn a halter for over a year. About a month ago he got really crazy every time we started to lead him anywhere. It turned out that he may have gotten a tick under the halter at the point just behind his ears. It was badly infected and the hair of the mane around the sore was falling out. The sore itself was invisible under the halter and not very large.

We took the halter off -- you wouldn't believe how hard it was to convince him to let us do that -- and let him go without one for nearly a month. The sore looks healed, and yet he still says he's sore there.

We didn't doctor the sore mainly because we have no way to hold him still. We're afraid he'll break his neck or strangle to death if we put a rope around his neck. We have no squeeze chute. The sore looked 99% better the day after we took the halter off, so we thought his own immune system was working pretty well.

Meanwhile I washed his halter in hot soapy water and let it air dry in the sun. He has worn the halter for brief periods of time but gets so nutty when we try to handle it that we don't know what to do. We don't know if he's really sore or if he's afraid it will hurt.

Any ideas?

-- helen (this_a_real_address@yahoo.com), July 15, 2001

Answers

Helen, really a bad idea to keep a halter on the animal all the time. Not only because of what happened this time, but because they can get hung up on things. Use the halter for when you want to lead him. No wonder he doesn't want you to put the thing back on, he's afraid you may never take it off again! I know everyone does things differently. Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), July 16, 2001.

Helen I am also anti halter,seen alot of animals get hurt with them on in a field.Is he tame at all? could you teach him to lead with a choke collar?how about a twich to hold him and make sure that wound is healed and the ticks head is still not in it?

-- renee oneill{md.} (oneillsr@home.com), July 16, 2001.

They also have very good memories and he may associate the halter with pain .Even if it does't hurt now .

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), July 16, 2001.

Try a little bigger sized halter, and the lightest, usually the cheapest too, thinnest fabric halter you can find. Sometimes the "Arab" sized ones are the thinnest material, less weight should help show him that it will not hurt anymore. Feed him treats while you try to re-halter him, maybe that will help too.

I leave very cheap, light weight halters on my four Arabs constantly, they are very thin poly, and cost 3.99 each, they break very easily, but enable me or the help to catch them way easier than with NO halter on, have had Arabs for over 20 years now, and the halters have always broken when they HAD to.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), July 16, 2001.


Thank you for all the advice. He wears a halter so that he can be staked out on good grass in areas where we don't have a fence. He doesn't like to eat in the same pasture as our goats (who could blame him?). We never leave him alone while he's staked out, but that's the reason for the halter anyway. We've made plans to permanently fence "his" area this fall when it's cool enough to clear brush without getting snake bit.

He used to be hard to catch, but if he wants out away from the goats he has to come to me. He hates goats. In the meantime we're going to get some rigid fence panels and fence in his area and just move the whole thing when he needs it. I had no idea you couldn't leave a halter on a horse, as my family always did it with no problems. It was a tick that started it, we're pretty sure.

-- helen (this_a_real_address@yahoo.com), July 16, 2001.



could he have picked uo lyme disease?

-- kathy h (ckhart55@earthlink.net), July 22, 2001.

I hope not. We had a cat die recently from a tick-borne disease that our vet was tracking for the vet equivalent of the CDC. He said the rest of the animals and us people couldn't get it, just cats, but I'm still worried about it.

-- helen (this_a_real_address@yahoo.com), July 22, 2001.

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