The Bovine Bugle

Keeping an eye on infected eyes in the dairy herd

The last couple of weeks we have been battling some type of conjunctivitis that has infected 8 cows in the milking herd. If it were the middle of summer you would think we were having pink eye, but not in the middle of winter. We've seen this before at this time of year, and we think it is caused by moldy feed.

The first sign that a cow has it is an eye that is watering
excessively, then she starts squinting with the same eye because of the discomfort. The eye will then cloud over and possibly become swollen. This is the peak of the disease, and then the swelling will go down, the eye will clear, and everything is back to normal.

This time around the infections seemed a little more severe. We even had one cow that had both eyes infected, something we had never seen before. The ages of the infected animals ranged from two years to almost 10 years, so no one age group was affected by the problem. I did contact Dr. Steve Woodward in Waterbury, a vet who uses many alternative medicines in his practice, and after discussing what was going on with the cows he mailed me several homeopathic remedies to try on the cows. I also use Dr. Paul's wound spray to drench the infected eyes. The spray, with active ingredients like garlic and comfrey, was okay to use on mucous membranes.

We haven't had any new cases for three weeks, and some of the animals I treated early with the spray and remedies didn't have such severe symptoms as the first few cows that contracted the disease. On a conventional farm, antibiotics would have been used to control the problem, but with some well-prescribed remedies and some "TLC" our cows came through this bump in the road just fine without using what would be considered the conventional treatment.
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Jonathan (left), Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at January 30, 2006 07:00 PM