[too many girls]

we wormed all our horses, sheep and goats with panacur 10% this morning, Gemma spat hers out and some of my hens ate it, does anyone know if this could harm them? bit worried now.

[Aunt Sally]

Vets will use panacur to worm hens but they advise an egg withdrawal period of 10 days after last use but I have no idea what dose a vet would use.  Phone Will TMG !

[too many girls]

thanks Aunty, i think the panacure the vets prescribe to poultry is the same one for dogs and cats, i think the cattle, horse and sheep wormer is different, i've been trying to get wormer down Gemma for the last 17 years and for 17 years she's tried to stop me (we bought her in 1992 for Floss's 10th birthday) the same method never works twice, ie sachets in her food worked the first time, the next time we tried she wouldn't eat it, it has now come to pinning her in a corner of the stable (don't let her see the wormer or you can't catch her, even in a stable) shove the worming gun in the corner of her mouth, be ready for her to go up on her back legs (if she's not pinned in the corner she'll go over backwards) shoot and pray, she holds it at the back of her throat and waits for a oportune moment to spit it out, so someone has to be ready with food, this morning she was one step ahead of us again, ate some food and then spat the lot out, there were about 6 hens who dived in, for such a small  (11 hands) and old pony (somewhere between 35 and 40) she's tricky, pip went to school with blue hair but at least 6 of our hens won't have worms...........................

[Aunt Sally]

 

What a wondeful picture you paint TMG.

An army of assorted aged and sized welly clad people creep up on a naughty Thelwell pony.  They are holding a huge drenching gun hidden behing their backs. I can see the pony watching them from the corner of it's eye while pretending they are not there.  Then there's a  kerfuffle of hens excitedly eating away and the pony is giggling at the Thelwel pony club all covered in blue pony spit   

[Foxy]

sort of like this? 


 

[too many girls]

that's sounds a lot more fun that it actually was, we anticipated trouble with Gemma and left her till last, that was our first mistake as she watched us do the horses and Ziggy and was well ready for battle by the time we got to her......................
i'm reminded of when we first got Gemma, she had lice (we didn't know it at the time) when Floss picked her feet out she must have leaned against her, she was crawling, my mum phoned me and told me she thought Gemma had lice  but didn't have any de-louse powder (she kept the pony for us as we didn't have room then) i told her to pour meths in a line from her poll to the top of her tail, that would help untill she could get the powder, when i called her later to ask how she'd got on, she told me "she didn't like it much, she say's it stinks" she'd only gone and done poor Floss as well.........................

[too many girls]

Be afraid, be very afraid,


butter wouldn't melt eh Gemma!
i'm no longer her best friend, i've been traipsing round the field trying to get a decent pic (thought she may still have had a blue mouth) she won't even look at me.

and your not much better.............

[Aunt Sally]

Awww... she they are lovely.  If wishes were hoses - I'd have loads.  well maybe one 

[too many girls]

the only good thing about Gemma being old is she can't nip anymore when your doing something nasty, she's got no teeth well no front ones anyway, they've worn down to below her gums.

[too many girls]

all hens are fine this morning, don't know what we are going to do about the egg situation, panacur has a 7 day egg withdrawal, i only recognised Joanna out of the troublesome 6, and out of the 30 or so egg layers i don't know who's laying and who isn't anyway.