We moved our cows yesterday back from the neighbors pasture, and several of the calves and a few cows have an aggressive, especially contagious strain of pinkeye.

We hope to treat them this evening if we can get them moved to the corral.

Any advice for treatment, or general herd management would be appreciated.

[quote][/quote]old timers used salt,,salt in the eye

Feed the cows kelp. Kelp prevents Pinkeye. We used to have Pinkeye before we fed kelp.

Shred your pastures just as soon as the grasses head out. The grass seeds get in their eyes, make their eyes water and draw flys to the moisture. The flys help spread it from one animal to another. Set the shredder high, take off the grass heads, but don't waste feed by shredding too low. Pasture management is key east of the big river for sure.

Get on a good mineral program and stay on it. Too many think mineral is too expensive. Good mineral is cheap herd health insurance.

GENETICS! Try to always buy bulls and replacement females from herds that have little pink eye issues.

Wet years can be a nightmare. Hang in there, the long range solution takes time, it doesn't disappear over night. I have a neighbor with a really nice commercial herd that he and his dad built up over several DECADES. Nice herd, healthy, productive, not a babied bunch of slackers, usually no pink eye problems, every once in a while, like once every 7-10 years he will have a major outbreak in his herd.

Good Luck.

AM, I am dealing with the same thing. Get draxon from your vet and apply salt to the eye. Eric

I've dr 100s of pinkeye maybe closer to a 1000. Nothing you can do to prevent. We've tried everything under the sun. LA 200 or Bioomycin works the BEST and is considerably cheaper than draxin. People will have an outbreak and then change something in there program and then not have pinkeye again and think the change fixed it but in all reality they just havent had a pink eye outbreak again.

Get a vet in don't delay, it gets worse quickly. The worse it gets the harder it is to cure and the more likelyhood of permanent damage. My vet showed me how to give injections in the upper inner eyelid, works terrific but you need the right drugs and somebody to show you how. No reason you couldn't continue to do it yourself if you had the drug and the instruction.
If you can't get a vet right away then ask him what you should do in the meantime.

Eyes are delicate, they get infected quickly and sometimes heal slowly. I have seen some really bad cases that got better but not always 100 percent better. Waiting and trying home made cures are a big mistake in my opinion. Get the right medicine the right way, right off the bat. I've seen probably 100 plus cases in the last dozen years, both in my herds and most of the neighbors.

Yes sir, just saw your post. Get a vet to show you the upper eyelid procedure it's a game changer. Penicillin and atropine sulfate, but the atropine is prescription.

To prevent vaccinate, mineral high in vitamin A with chloratetracycline , fly control. To treat LA200.

They don't sell feed grade antibiotics any more do they? Aeromyicin crumbles were the ticket, but they made them prescription only.

We've given up to three pinkeye vaccines to per head and didnt stop pinkeye. Save ur money and dont call a vet. Pinkeye is easy to treat and I get a 100% cure with LA200 or similar drug. I not will reverse the damage done put LA200 works the best and fast.

Yes they sell medicated supplements or feed but we've fed literally tons of it and if your having a real outbreak it isnt a high enough level of antibiotics to stop it

We don't use Pinkeye vaccines.

We run beafmaster crosses and have maybe a case every other year or so ,free choice mineral,fly bags ,rotational grazing,no brushhogging seed heads.no pinkeye vacines they are standing shoulder deep in fescue all the time .genetics is a huge factor.

I have used salt in the eye. Probably have to get them into the chute , to repeat treatment. There was also a blue spray , but not sure , what it was. Dusty feed in bale feeders, could start it. Flies are the carryer's , I have had cows that lost an eye to it. If it gets bad , cull the animal , before it turns to cancer eye, and the animal is condemned at slaughter. Good Luck old243

Probably Blue Kote is what you are thinking of.

I remember back in the early 80s we had some problems with it, used to put some powder in the affected eye.

I haven't had any problem with it lately (knock on wood) I do give my calves a shot before turning them out to pasture.

Good luck with your problem.

As far as I know feed grade antibiotics or medicated crumbles were off the market with out a prescription in Jan 2018. Worked good as a preventative, real good.

Upper eyelid injections in conjunction with sub cutaneous antibiotics are the ticket if you want to minimize damage and shorten healing process.

in the 70s we had a cpl outbreaks.... sprayed i think it was aeromyacin... thought it was yellow stuff... might have been blue.. then glued a patch over the eye.. and a shot of la200.... cleared em up... this was drought related.. flies and bunched up in dust corner of pasture... mostly calves... dont remember ever having trouble with cows other than random cow with bad eye that got culled in the fall

dad always fed crumbles and oats for cpl weeks after weaning.. i didnt know crumbles were outlawed... but i been ouuta the game many many years . and got that CRS real bad

Medicated feed or mineral isnt outlawed you just need a prescription from the vet.