A few days ago Copper, my 32-year-old Quarter Horse, says to me, “I have had, ahem, a little setback.”
He’s referring to a punishing kick in the chest from one of his herd mates exactly one week ago. But true to form, even though Copper considers this a “little setback,” he hasn’t missed a meal or limped a step.
We were appalled when we found the huge lump growing on his chest like something out of Alien— complete with hoofprint stamped thereupon. It was about as big as a small watermelon and within hours was as hard as a rock.
Homeopathic, high potency Arnica to the rescue. Lots of doses for three days then tapering off. The lump stayed about the same, though softened a bit, and the heat left it. And Copper just kept chomping through his rations. And, might I add, a 32-year-old horse doesn’t have many teeth left, so chomping on anything is quite a feat. But Copper does it very well. In fact he can still eat grass hay and even graze, a true miracle at his age.
So here we are, a week later, the watermelon has turned to mush, hair is falling out, and the whole thing is about to become Mount Vesuvius and massively erupt as what may become known as the mother of all abscesses. It’s going to be a gory sight — a nasty and smelly business. But Copper seems like he could care less, and we of course are going to see him through.
I know what is going through your mind. Where is the vet? Aren’t you totally freaked out? To answer, the vet is coming in 3 days — to check the horses’ teeth, so I’ll have him check the abscess too, just to cover all bases. And no, I am not freaking out. In fact, I am thrilled.
The fact that the immune system of a 32-year-old horse has the wherewithall to form and dispose of abscess material within a week, in a normal way — by erupting, is a phenomenon worth celebrating. Contrary to what one would think, one does not want to suppress the infection in an abscess by giving antibiotics. This just drives the energy of the infection deeper into the body, and it will show up later as more serious symptoms.
So we are celebrating as we speak. Awaiting the smelly pus and blood and gore to begin flowing out, hopefully tomorrow. We will help it along with hot compresses and will keep it open and “clean” (an oxymoron in this case) so it can do its deed and rid dear Copper’s body of the offending infection.
The moral to this story is: how and why can a horse Copper’s age be so healthy and his system so effective at clearing such a heinous injury? I have to believe it is all due to the absolutely superb nutrition he has had since he was given to me as a throwaway horse 10 years ago. During that time he has also received no vaccines (since he doesn’t ever travel or go on the show circuit — though I’m sure he could if he wanted to), and his worming is mostly handled herbally.
I’ll admit, Copper gets a LOT of superb supplements, but so do I and so do the rest of my animals. Our mainstay is the superfood blue-green algae by Simplexity, in many different forms. It is such a perfect, easily assimilable, food that it literally fills pretty much all nutritional gaps. I urge you to try it, for yourself and your old horses — and for your kids and other animals too.
So, in case you’re interested, Copper’s blue-green algae each day is:
And on the new moon and the full moon he gets 15 Spectrabiotic to power up his gut to rid itself of offending parasites! He hardly ever requires a chemical worming.
Go Copper!!!!!
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