We've been having trouble the last few months with little black ants attacking the eyes of our newborn calves, randomly throughout the paddocks. I think they're attracted to the moisture on the newly born calves as they swarm all over them but really get stuck into their eyes. I've found several babies with big swollen eyes, blind as a bat. Its almost impossible to pick all the ants out. I've been watching one calf and he stayed blind for about a month. His eyes went milky blue, then a horrible cream colour, and that has slowly got smaller and smaller. I saw him on a watering point for the first time since he was born and he can see again. Today hubby alerted me to a little bloke sitting out in the paddock, he was so eaten up and distressed by the ants, I brought him home. No sign of a mother anywhere around. These are not the big red meatants, which also abound in this country, just little tiny vicious black fellas. They must have some sort of poison to cause the blindness. Nothing we can do about it - you can't put Antrid on thousands of acres!