Eye Trouble

[Anonymous]

We have one cow with an eye that is occasionally weepy and sometimes swollen and red. It seems to come and go on it's own. Today it's back and it looks real bad. Last time I thought it might be from the tall grass getting her in the eye so we mowed the tall grass down and let them back in. 2 weeks later, her eye is more swollen and weepy again only it's worse than it's been before. It looks cloudy as well. I thought of pink eye but it dosen't seem to bother her much and the light doesn't bother her either. Could it be pinkeye still? I'm planing on separating her, giving her an antibiotic and patching the eye. Until I get close to her, I can't tell if there's anything more going on with her eye - she's not fond of us getting all that close to her. What do you all think? Any suggestions?

[email protected]

 

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you're on top of the problem. She very well could have a seed or sticker under her eyelid, or she could just have a recurring bacterial or viral infection, either of which could be called pinkeye.

Inspect the eye (esp. under the eyelids), give the antibiotics and patch the eye, but seal the patch well, so flies can't get under the patch. It was good that you mowed the grass. Don't forget fly control - rubs, sprays, fly traps, fly parasites - whatever works for your program!

Other thoughts - some cows are more prone to pinkeye than others, especially those with pink pigment around the eye.

Rafter L Murray Greys

 

[Anonymous]

Well, we got her in our brand new head-gate we set up this morning (praise God for that alone!) and got a good look at her eye. And sure enough - there's a nice little chunk missing right out of the middle, she's quite clouded up and swollen. SO - I irrigated it well, put in an ointment (recomended at the co-op), patched it and gave her some LA 200. I'll get her back in there in a few days and remove the patch and take a look. Her other eye looks like it's starting to swell a little but no other symptoms.

We then got all the others in and checked them out as well. So far so good. <IMG SRC="http://161.58.242.16/smilies/smile.gif" BORDER=0 ALT=""> (sigh of relief, for now)

[email protected]

 

[Anonymous]

One of the vets we use said the absolute worst thing he had EVER,EVER seen was an eye patch that had a batch of maggots under it. Flies had managed to sneak under the patch and lay eggs. He told us to never use them - even if you check every day you might miss fly eggs and end up with a worse problem than pink eye.