Pink

Yesterday, we brought in the 250 cows from pasture to check on their due dates and their eyes.

Why their eyes?

Pink eye.

It's one of the most common infections in dairy cattle along with foot rot, which shall be a story for another time.

How do cows get Pink eye?

It can happen from flies bothering and infecting their eyes.

It can happen by getting a plant, such as a foxtail, in their eye.

What are the symptoms of pink eye?

Runny, watery eyes that appear as if the cow is crying.

Droopy eyelids.

They behave as if they are blind in the eye that's infected, as in they will not see a gate and run into it.

Pink inflammation, and in the worst cases, it will turn blue such as this:

How do you cure Pink Eye?

You have the Ramblin' Cowgirl and the Portugese Cowboy come to the rescue!

I get to wrestle with the cows in the chute or in the locked pens. I twitch their noses with my hand, and I try to hold their heads still, so our herdsman can inject medicine in their eye with a needle.  Then, he puts some powder in their eye to top it off, and the end result looks like this:

The worst cases get an additional injection of medicine, LA-200, to help them get over the infection quicker.

The end result for me? Unfortunately, no pictures. But if you can imagine - I'm covered in cow slobber, cow paint (the orange on their head in the pictures - thats how we mark them going through a large group), powder, a penicillin mixture (which I'm allergic to, so my arm is sometimes covered in a small rash until I can wash it off), and of course, cow manure.

Just another day at the office!