Blind Cows

[Anonymous]

At the sale barn yesterday, I bought a Black Angus who is totally blind. He is off the bottle and eating feeding. am guessing by weight he is somewhere in the six weeks old category.

His eye sockets are completely healed over and he appears to be alright otherwise. We've done the inoculation, vaccinations and everything else when he came in.

My question is obviously, he is blind as can be so can we pasture him with our two other calves in the electric fence or should we mark off a special pen just for him?

Debbie



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[Anonymous]

Blind animals can adjust to their suroundings, but when spooked their natural inclination is to run away from what scares them. I would pen him seperate for a while, then introduce him to his pen mates, let him explore slowly, he probably already is very cautious, but make sure you take him to his water source and see him drink, they can smell water but help him along.

I don't know what part of the country you are in, but here in Texas Fire ants and Black headed buzards will cause blindness due to eye damage, rarely will a calf even survive, but yours has, maybe it was caused by a genetic defect.

Good luck

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