Bad eyes in young cattle

[Frantic Farmer]

Every year we get a few problems with New Forest disease in weaned cattle away on grass keep . Runny eye , turning red etc . Treat with cream and usually clears up . Now we have a new one , puss comes from the eye ,it swells, gets red pupil very quickly and goes blind , any one else had it like this

 

[ridger]

I have a few cattle with bad eyes this year as well, seems very slow to clear up.

 

[Samcowman]

After always having problems in our first year dairy beef grazers our vets imported a vaccine for us this year called maxiguard. No problems at all in the vaccinated ones with a couple of problems in a small group of unvaccinated ones.

 

[Tractorboy67]

I’ve had some with bad eyes very slowly getting better they been getting treated for 3 months now with cream. But only the Angus it affects for some reason

 

[Jimfandango]

I have had this for the last 3 summers having never had it before. As above, some cream sorts most, the worse ones get jab of almycin LA too. I assumed it was a fly related issue as they spend the season down by the river. This year I treated them with spotinor, at turnout, and the problem has been greatly reduced.

 

[Formatted]

After always having problems in our first year dairy beef grazers our vets imported a vaccine for us this year called maxiguard. No problems at all in the vaccinated ones with a couple of problems in a small group of unvaccinated ones.

+1 for the vaccine, if you have reoccurring problems saves a lot of hassle.

 

[milkloss]

Get this on the marshes quite a bit. Not so bad this year which is why I've always put it down to them getting in the ditched when it's dry and hurting eyes on the reeds.

Jab of alamycin la will usually sort it, you shouldn't use alamycin spray in the eye but I've been told it's very effective too.

 

[bluebell]

Had one this year, key is to treat early, with ointment, dayly from vet and antiboitic, bad case, vet will inject into eye, i think its calves grazing get a stalk that then scratches eye

 

[bluebell]

milkloss i agree; i wonder sometimes what happened before there was these eye ointments and alamycin, if the eye isnt treated early it gets bad, then attracts flies ?

 

[Beames]

I had a bad year last year in a bunch of cattle. I couldn’t get on top of it and just seemed that every day a different animal needed treatment. Set up a catching pen with a crush and was using the eye ointment. But was a real pain. In the end I just got them in the catching pen and jabbed them with alamaycin with my masterject gun and worked a treat. This year on the same patch of ground haven’t had to treat a single animal.

 

[Werzle]

Used to get it bad in an old meadow with buttercups, cattle seemed to scratch eyes on them so try to top them off sooner nowadays.

 

[Werzle]

I had a bad year last year in a bunch of cattle. I couldn’t get on top of it and just seemed that every day a different animal needed treatment. Set up a catching pen with a crush and was using the eye ointment. But was a real pain. In the end I just got them in the catching pen and jabbed them with alamaycin with my masterject gun and worked a treat. This year on the same patch of ground haven’t had to treat a single animal.

Always the way you get them in to treat a couple and next day more have got it almost like grouping them has spread it

 

[steveR]

Get this on the marshes quite a bit. Not so bad this year which is why I've always put it down to them getting in the ditched when it's dry and hurting eyes on the reeds.

Jab of alamycin la will usually sort it, you shouldn't use alamycin spray in the eye but I've been told it's very effective too.

I still remember being told to jab a beast with a massive dose of Alamycin for NFD several years ago, and thinking at the time of all the hours we spent with creams and powders in the past!

 

[som farmer]

yanks have a vaccine for 'pink eye', which looks like NFE, didn't know anything available here in the UK.

We used to have problems, in the young calves, then started putting fly tags in their ears, problem solved.

4 yrs ago, had problems with a group, jabbed the lot with Alimycin LA, and cream in any bad eyes, local vegan rang min, so a foreign vet came out, vets had been consulted, drugs in med book, so everything ok............................................................................................except we had used orbenin DC tubes, instead of a 'proper' eye cream, therefore off label, which she threw a wobbly over, perused all our med records, movement records etc, had to have our vets out, further inspections from min.

all completely ok, and as the vets said, it was the same cream in the eye tube, as the DC tube.

so our drug list, contains eye ointment, with a very long expiry date !

a complete waste of time and money, the vet was not a polite person, no common sense, thought she was going to take it further, luckily, from a time point of view, she didn't. Apart from the cream, everything else was in order.

stopped keeping sheep in that field several yrs before, somebody kept ringing RSPCA and the min, every time a ewe limped, again nothing ever wrong. No-one would tell us, who complained, we had our suspicions, but no proof.

RSPCA, used to say, 'she's rung us again, and we have to come out'.