D&*(%d pinkeye

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dyates

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Just have to rant. It's horrible this year, I guess because the flies are horrible. I vaccinated everything last year and vaccinated all the calves this year. Even with no vaccines, the cows don't have it.....yet. Running 60% infection rate and counting on the calves that were vaccinated :mad: . Oh yeah, the bull has it too and he won't fit in my little squeeze chute. That's just what I need, a one ton hunk of muscle that's pissed off and blind :mad: I'll just keep pumping the oxytet and spraying for flies and hope for the best. Thanks for listening :tiphat: .
 
I agree the flies seem especially bad this year. Reading up on pinkeye it seems there are many strains and vaccines don't necessarily get the one you've got.

I have had good luck with the rubs and dangling flyps to catch their face. I doubled up on the rubs and flyps this summer and find I have to douse the rub more often but it seems to be working. 4 oz of Permectrin II (10% permythrin) in 2.5 gal of diesel fuel poured on the rub from a gas can once a week seems to work. Many of the products out there if direct sprayed on cattle say they can cause eye damage....how do you spray a cow for face flies and not risk getting the spray in their eyes???

This seems to work.

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Just an idea. Needs to be in a place where they must pass thru a couple times a day. This year I seem to need to charge it every week rather than every couple weeks as in past summers. I hate to see my cattle covered with flies, in addition to the pinkeye risk. Injections to treat the pinkeye don't help with the source of the problem nor its spread from one to the other. One hint is to fasten the rubs up securely with chain or cable. They like to rub their backs and hind quarters on them so they need to be put up securely.

Good luck. Jim
 
I have a rub just like yours, flips and all, across the doorway of the barn. The barn joins the main pasture to a small lot where I have city water hooked up. They love that city water but it makes for one heck of a water bill! As far as spraying, most of the cows are like pets. I can walk amongst them and spray with a handheld sprayer. I bait the calves to a trough with mineral and get them. Still, even my gray cows are black.....with flies. Most of them are common house flies. There are plenty of hornflies, but waaaaaay more houseflies.
 
dyates":2zrjbqw2 said:
I have a rub just like yours, flips and all, across the doorway of the barn. The barn joins the main pasture to a small lot where I have city water hooked up. They love that city water but it makes for one heck of a water bill! As far as spraying, most of the cows are like pets. I can walk amongst them and spray with a handheld sprayer. I bait the calves to a trough with mineral and get them. Still, even my gray cows are black.....with flies. Most of them are common house flies. There are plenty of hornflies, but waaaaaay more houseflies.
For house flys nothing works as well as one of the various scatter baits.
 
I brought back an old thread where we talked about pinkeye, should have done it earlier. You might contact your vet, pinkeye vaccines are like flu vaccines in that it's somewhat of a moving target and some vets are good at knowing what works. Along with your oxytet try squirting some Naxel in the infected eye. Try to get some fly spray that is different than what you are using. If practical clip the pasture. Sounds like your in a nasty deal with this, sometimes what ever you do it doesn't work right.

Larry
 
Fought it all year...
Not much you can do when it gets going
Dyates they tell me this years is a sheep pinkeye?

Killing me to...
 
larryshoat":3bysazco said:
I brought back an old thread where we talked about pinkeye, should have done it earlier. You might contact your vet, pinkeye vaccines are like flu vaccines in that it's somewhat of a moving target and some vets are good at knowing what works. Along with your oxytet try squirting some Naxel in the infected eye. Try to get some fly spray that is different than what you are using. If practical clip the pasture. Sounds like your in a nasty deal with this, sometimes what ever you do it doesn't work right.

Larry

Thank you for bring back the old thread. I think one of your key points is the clipping of pastures. Clipping pastures has many benefits. I wonder if overgrown pasture is a factor in the repeated pinkeye cases. Some folks, like grazing public lands, can not clip but many of us can.

Jim
 
I've heard that both are a contributing factor.. longer pastures that have the seed heads are an irritant, as are face flies. It seems like the years that we get it, we get more than one case, and other years nothing.

I spray the cattle religiously every third day, and we also feed the protein tubs with the fly stuff in them, and have some of those wasps you put out. It definately helps, and we have a LOT of flies this year.
 
This year has not been as bad on flies for me. Don't know why. I haven't had to spray the herd. My guess is that folks with cows in adjacent pastures have been treating their cows this year.

Pink eye broke out during the winter. It is about the only thing I use LA200 on and it works. LA200 and 2 cc's of pen in the eye lid worked for those infected. Pink eye has not been back since about January.
 
We put fly tags in every animal on the farm. Very rarely do we have to treat for pinkeye. In fact we never have to treat the beef cows or calves out on pasture. I have an instant or two with a dairy cow but they are in confinement so that's a whole different deal.
 
novaman":3t66pt49 said:
We put fly tags in every animal on the farm. Very rarely do we have to treat for pinkeye. In fact we never have to treat the beef cows or calves out on pasture. I have an instant or two with a dairy cow but they are in confinement so that's a whole different deal.

Don't get complacent about beef cows, fly tags and open pasture. Keep a wary eye out. I had never had it in my scenario until this year. Open pasture. Brangus. Fly tags in both ears. Cows are wormed and innoculated regularly. Pink eye broke out. Go figure. In the middle of winter too.
 
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