When tacking him up last Tuesday I noticed his muzzle hairs being short and thick. Well they we're not. He had 'spikes' sticking out of his nose about 20-30 of them. Not that he seems to be bothered by them but touching them did make him flinch a bit. First I thought they were some kind of thorns or so. But when I pulled the first one out, which was not easy, it looked more like a quill. Only a lot shorter then I would expect from one. So, a hedgehog ? No not indigenous in the US. So I settled on a 'baby' porcupine.
Now were he would have found one in the middle of January I do not know but he does have a habit of sticking his nose in places where it should not be. He's been known to pull bra straps of unwary farriers but that's a different story.
The night in question however was not a planed treatment night and I had not brought his fix. Pulling them out by hand and non-sedated it had to be. Besides him sticking his nose in places, he also has an sick liking to a light pulling on his nose whiskers. This helped a little and despite the slipperiness from the blood now running down his nose I got most of them pulled out straight. I found one that was in with only a 1/4 inch sticking out and I could not get a hold of it with him twitching his nose. It became a catch game with pliers and even with those I had to pull hard. In the end there were about 20-30 laying on the floor. All about 3/4 of an inch long and had been buried about 2/3 of that into his nose. They definitely felt scaly stroking towards the tip. Leave it up to him to wake a sleeping needle pin cushion !!
So onto his ears.
The whole thing was pretty uneventful and I think one more week and we're done. The white seen is mostly new skin that comes off when cleaning. Some round white spots that I think are deeper damaged tissue and will heal over time.
Left ear:
Right ear:
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