The Many Faces of Pink Eye

Last week, Dallin noticed a cow that was having issues with seeing - she kept tripping and walking into trees and the other cows.  24 hours later, several cows were having the same problems!  We called a vet out on Friday and he confirmed pink eye.  Pink eye in cattle can be started easily by a cow getting poked in the eye by a blade of grass, the cut getting infected, and then a fly landing on the infected eye and going from cow to cow.  The vet supplied us with all of the meds we needed plus a vaccine. 

Saturday morning, before it got too hot, Tim and Dallin rounded up the cattle and got them into the corral.

It wasn't very easy to get them where they should be - so many cows were having problems seeing, they just kept running into the corral panels instead of going through the opening!

Poor thing!  Her right eye is affected, but not her left (YET!).  (notice the flies??)

Weeping left eye. (and more flies!)

Both eyes infected. (yep, flies)

It looks horrible, doesn't it?? (flies here too!)

The bull was sporting a pirate-y one-eye-winking look! - see how the flies are hanging out around his infected eye?

Poor Miss Daisy had it the worst!  Both eyes looked like this.

Once the cattle were in the corral and a little calmed down, we got our supplies ready - bottles of meds, a chart for Hayleigh to write down what we did, lots of syringes, and the fly sprayer!

Dallin has the 'persuader' *wink*! (He also got pushed off of the top by a cow and got an awesome abrasion across his whole chest.)

Daisy's other eye. (and LOADS of flies!)

Kyle came over to help us (thank goodness!) and we got a system going - single out the cow we want to treat, persuade it to go in the chute and eventually turn in to the head gate.    In the head gate, we can lock them in to make it easier to give shots, etc...   Sounds easy, right??  

Let me tell you, with blind cows, this was anything BUT easy!  Each cow had to put in the head gate, checked out, documented, treated for pink eye, and sprayed for flies before being let go back to the pasture.  Some cows had eye patches put on too.

Patiently waiting her turn.

This poor little guy had an extra fun time in the head gate!  Not only did he get an antibiotic squirted in the eye, a vaccine, pink eye meds, and fly spray...he also got BANDED.  Too much fun. hahaha.

Tyler took over Kyle's spot when Kyle had to leave - thank goodness! Tyler putting glue on a patch for an eye.  

When all was said and done, only 5 head out of 36 did not have pink eye.  14 had pink eye in both eyes!  Hopefully, this herd will start seeing life a lot differently very soon!