Thursday, August 12, 2010

August Tails

Its been a little cooler here today, but still dry.   Very cloudy, but no rain.   You can not imagine how desperate all us farmers are for rain.  Apples have prematurely been falling off of all the trees for 3 weeks.

Rain, we need rain.       The drought has affected all kinds of things in this state

Flys, extremely sunny days, heat, dust, short dry grass, tall weeds and humidity have caused many of the herd to get pink eye.
Haven't had a case in 10 years.  The worst ones were vaccinated about 3 weeks ago and I have been spraying the herd every 3 days.   They see me coming and they run now.    One of my young Simmental cows has it the worst in one eye.  I want to put a patch on her and need to move the whole herd back to the farm so I can treat the new worst ones.    Frustrating situation.   The cloudy day today gave them some relief.

Any of you cattle ranchers have any good ideas for pink eye?     Unusual methods welcomed.

Anyhow, here is the herd yesterday at sundown as I circled them up to spray them down.



The newest calf and a proud heavy milking mom. Gotta love those Simmentals!



Tails Tails as far as I see
A sea of tails "waving" at me.


Red ones, white ones, black and brown
Stampeding away as the sun goes down


Spray them, chute them, get rid of the flys
Pray for cool weather to protect their eyes

To help the herd, need clouds and rain
Keep down the dust and stop the pain

Cows are a blessing, some work and a laugh
Especially cows very moody with calf

Watch those tails a swinging by
A parade of a herd with runny eyes.

2 comments:

  1. LOL, love the poem, it was great. This is how we treat pink eye with Oxytretraclyclene or Biomycene (I can't remember how to spell either) 60cc for a cow. Then spray the eye with the purple coloured Pinkeye and Wound Spray. The trick is to spray enough in their eye to see it run out their nose then you know it's gotten in the sinus cavity. Then patch it with piece of blue jean fabric with tag cement on the top not all the way around the material. It will eventually fall off and it protects the eye from those flies that spread it around the herd. Hope that helps. I'll pray for rain for you folks in Vermont. It's been an exceptionally wet year here so maybe we're getting the rain you usually get.

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  2. Feeding free choice Icelandic kelp in the mineral box helps keep pink eye at bay...

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