My horse's ear is raw and painful. Can I treat it at home for ticks?

Oh my. This ear looks badly infected and nothing topical should be placed on this ear except sterile saline and perhaps Chlorhexidine solution diluted. Bull needs to be seen by a vet as soon as possible for proper debridement of this wound, possible skin samples to find out the underlying cause, pain medicaiton, and oral or injectable antibiotics. This is not something you can treat for at home due to the severity of this wound. Please take Bull in to a vet right away. I hope that he is able to make a full and speedy recovery. Best wishes and take care. Here is a website link for financial resources if needed. Best of luck. http://m.humanesociety.org/animals/resources/tips/trouble_affording_veterinary_care.html

Oh my. Poor guy. Unfortunately this ear has a hole through it and is badly infected. He needs to see a doctor for proper care of this ear and prescribed antibiotics as well as have suturing of the laceration. This cannot be treated at home with much success. For now you can try cleaning it with Betadine diluted 50:50 with warm water to help prevent further infection, but please schedule an appt with your vet right away or if he does no belong to anyone in particular, then he should be surrender to an animal shelter so that they can use their resources there to try and save this pets ear and eye. I wish you all the best moving forward and hope that you can Kata moving forward. Best wishes and take care.

Hi, I am sorry to hear about Sparrow's ear. The inside of his ear looks clean as you have shown in the picture. The back/base of his ear unfortunately looks quite infected. It is great that you are keeping the Ecollar on to prevent him from scratching the ear. Sometimes topical treatment alone will not be able to heal this type of infection. The area looks very moist, either from infection or the ointment(s) that are being applied. Typically when cats have an infected area on their skin, we want the area dry and do not put on topical treatments. This wound would most likely heal very quickly with a visit to Sparrow's veterinarian. The doctor can clip and clean the wound with medical grade gentle cleansing solution and get Sparrow on antibiotics. The antibiotics (which needs a doctor prescription) is the main treatment to get this to heal. I cannot recommend any further over the counter treatments that would allow this to heal. I am sorry about that. I would recommend to keep him indoors only, keep the ecollar on, and hold off on the ointment so the area can dry up. The veterinary appointment can hopefully happen soon and Sparrow will be on his way to healing quickly. Best of luck.

Although this seems like an easy question to answer, this might actually be complicated. This wound on an ear could be from many things- is he shaking his head because of an ear infection? Is he scratching because of allergies? Has he recently had a rabies vaccine or been ill? You may not be able to treat this wound without finding out about these possible problems. Also, you may need antibiotics, steroids or other special meds to get this to heal. At home, you can keep the area clean, use a warm washcloth to remove the crusting and apply something like Neosporin to the wound. Other than that, you need to see your vet for more diagnostics and treatment.

I think it will be fine to try and treat this at home for now (even though we don't know the cause), but would recommend a visit to the vet if: 1) It doesn't get better in 2 weeks 2) It starts to get worse or have a lot of discharge. Keeping the wound clean and keeping it covered are the key treatments for success in getting this wound to heal as soon as possible. For this, I recommend the following: 1) Wash/spray the area with just cool, clean water (no soap or other antiseptics) for at least 2 minutes at a time. Do this once a day. 2) Bandage the wound with gauze and apply an over-the-counter antibacterial cream (i.e Neosporin) to the wound. Here is a link to a good demonstration of a head bandage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3c-SXhUSBY Keeping it covered and keeping Indiana from pulling it off will be the most difficult part of the treatment. You can help keep the bandage on by placing a good (really sticky) tape above and below the bandage. NOTE: Be careful not to bandage too tight or it can cut-off the circulation. If you notice that the neck/chin area start to swell, then remove the bandage and leave it off until the swelling goes down. These types of lesions tend to take a while to heal, so don't be surprised if its not completely healed until a month later. Once the skin looks normal you can stop the cleaning/bandaging. I hope that helps and Indiana gets better soon.

Poor guy. This is a laceration, and it looks like it may be deep. It needs to be cleaned with an antiseptic such as Betadine diluted 50:50 with water or Chlorhexidine solution diluted with water until a very light blue mixture. Then Izzy needs to be placed on oral antibiotics and possibly even suturing of this area so that the skin covers it and allows it to heal. It looks like it is already infected, and infected wounds don't heal, so antibiotics are a must. I would perhaps go to a second vet for another look at this or insist on your current vet treating this wound properly. I hope that Izzy's wound heals up well soon! Best of luck and take care.

Poor Coco! I would have her seen by a vet, as that ear looks bad and possibly infected. I think it needs veterinary treatment to heal correctly. I'd make an appointment for her in the morning. After her eat is treated by a vet, there are a few things you can try to help keep the flies off her ears. You can use some petroleum jelly on the outside of the ear (do not get any down the ear canal) to keep them from biting. You can use a spray with the active botanical ingredient Pyrethrum, you may find one at a pet store. Keep your yard cleaned, pick up all the dog feces daily, make sure her food and water bowls are kept clean, and don't let your garbage overflow to cut down on the number of flies in your yard. Best of luck, I hope this helps!