David, I thought of another thing you must keep your eye on for Mootilda's
well being.

I'd got out into the veg garden ealry this morning and the cows were in a
paddock just outside it. Being the sticky beaks they are, they all came up
to check out what I was up to. When they do this I try to sidle up to the
gate where they stand to see how close I can get before they take off. This
time I managed to get about 4 ft from them by walking sideways and looking
in the other direction. They then stayed there while I talked to them. I
then realised I hadn't told you to look out for Pink Eye.

Pink Eye generally occurs when it is hot, dusty and windy but when you see
it you have to act quickly and treat it as otherwise your cow can end up
blind in at least one eye. the first symptom you will probably notice is a
trickle of moisture down the cow's cheek coming from the eye - if you catch
it at this stage and treat it you should be able to fix it in one dose.
You'll need to get the ointment from the vet and, if it appears, also buy
some cattle nose pliers at the same time or you'll have the Devil's own time
administering it. It's a 2 person job. One person (the strongest) holds
the cow using the nose pliers in the septum and the other person puls down
the lid on the bottom of the eye and squeezes the ointment in - job done and
if early only needs doing once. I'ts not as difficult as it sounds if you
can get the animal into a crush but without the nose pliers to hold the head
in place it's very hard. The nose pliers don't hurt the cow or at least
only very minimally for a very short space of time and they're better than
being blind.

FarmI wrote:
David, I thought of another thing you must keep your eye on for
Mootilda's well being.

I'd got out into the veg garden ealry this morning and the cows were
in a paddock just outside it. Being the sticky beaks they are, they
all came up to check out what I was up to. When they do this I try
to sidle up to the gate where they stand to see how close I can get
before they take off. This time I managed to get about 4 ft from
them by walking sideways and looking in the other direction. They
then stayed there while I talked to them. I then realised I hadn't
told you to look out for Pink Eye.

Pink Eye generally occurs when it is hot, dusty and windy but when
you see it you have to act quickly and treat it as otherwise your cow
can end up blind in at least one eye. the first symptom you will
probably notice is a trickle of moisture down the cow's cheek coming
from the eye - if you catch it at this stage and treat it you should
be able to fix it in one dose. You'll need to get the ointment from
the vet and, if it appears, also buy some cattle nose pliers at the
same time or you'll have the Devil's own time administering it. It's
a 2 person job. One person (the strongest) holds the cow using the
nose pliers in the septum and the other person puls down the lid on
the bottom of the eye and squeezes the ointment in - job done and if
early only needs doing once. I'ts not as difficult as it sounds if
you can get the animal into a crush but without the nose pliers to
hold the head in place it's very hard. The nose pliers don't hurt
the cow or at least only very minimally for a very short space of
time and they're better than being blind.

thanks for that

David