Sounds like it could be pink eye. The best treatment we found for this when we had it run through our herd last spring was to wash their faces, eyes and ears with a warm solution of water with Johnson's baby shampoo and treat in the eye with Terramycin ointment (sp?). Be sure to change the rag you are using with each animal - you may want to wash ALL the faces, even of the ones that don't show signs of it yet. If an animal has one good eye and one bad eye - be sure to treat the GOOD eye first as to not infect it from the bad eye. Be sure to wash your hands in between each animal. Make sure you then wash all the rags in the washing machine with bleach before using them again the next day. You need to wash their faces at least daily - If they are very bad with lots of stuff running, twice a day is better. Quarantine them away from others that don't have it may help keep it from spreading. I also washed any posts that were favorite rubbing posts with a bleach solution every couple of days and the feeders every day with a bleach solution. There was a thread about the Johnson's baby shampoo wash on this forum in the past, which is where we got the idea to do that - that REALLY, REALLY helps - maybe helps more than the medicine! For the one who's eye is cloudy, you may also want to treat with systematic antibiotics. Pink eye is a very contagious bacteria, YOU CAN GET IT FROM YOUR SHEEP - Sheep can get it from other animals - even CATS! The first signs in the sheep is the squinting, then comes runny clear fluid and redness in the whites and progresses from there. You need to keep the treatment up for about 2 weeks, even if the animal seems to be fine - they can relapse and you have to start all over. Keep a close eye on all the sheep for the squinting and start them on treatment immediately at that sign. Also, try to keep them out of dry, dusty areas as much as possible, which can exacerbate the problem.
Beware of salespeople who try to sell you bovine pink eye vaccine - it does not work on sheep and is a waste of time and LOTS of money! Onalee =============================================== This message is from the Blackbelly Sheep mailing list (http://www.awrittenword.com/listserv/index.html). To respond to this message, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe or change your membership options, go to http://lists.coyotenet.net/mailman/listinfo/blackbelly To search the archives, go to http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
