[Clydeview1]

Hi,

I have a wether with a sore eye, it's half closed and is quite red and cloudy, I got some alamycin and meta calm from the vet for him on Monday as this is what they recommended, am I wrong to think it should have cleared up by now? It's not improved at all so I'll probably phone the vet back up but i wondered if there's anything anyone recommends that may help?

Thank you 

[twizzel]

Sounds like pink eye, alamycin normally works so ring the vet back, he may need another dose

[shep53]

Do you have more sheep ,if it is pinkeye then it is highly contagious !!   a picture would help ?

[Fleecewife]

There is an ointment you can get from your vet too which will help ease the pain for the sheep.  It's so long since we've neeeded to use it that I can't remember the name.  When you put the ointment in the eye, wear disposable gloves and be very careful with your hygiene as some conditions can be passed on to humans.
It sounds like pink eye, which is properly called infectious conjunctivitis, but it could also be due to an eye injury.  If your wether is a multihorned sheep then the problem could be SUED but I won't elaborate if it's not multihorned.

[Womble]

When we had pink eye, our farmer neighbour told us to drop alamycin directly into the eye, or to use blue spray (which sounded a bit drastic!). For the old hands on here - do any of you do either of these, and do they help?

[Anke]

Orbenin eye ointment. I only ever had pink eye sporadically in individual ewes. I probably would not spray terramycin straight into the eye, though I have heard of that as well.

[Fleecewife]

Orbenin eye ointment. I only ever had pink eye sporadically in individual ewes. I probably would not spray terramycin straight into the eye, though I have heard of that as well.

Thanks Anke, that's the one    Orbenin will help soothe the pain, spraying anything directly into the eye will add to the pain. There is another option which is injecting directly into the eyelid, but only someone who is well skilled at that should even contemplate it. 

[Womble]

Yes, we've done eyelid injections to sort out turned in eyelids in newborn lambs, but I really don't fancy trying it on a ewe that's heavier and stronger than I am!!

[Clydeview1]

Thank you for all your replies!

I'm just on the way to the vets to pick up some ointment I'm pretty sure its the one that you mentioned so fingers crossed this does the trick as I really wouldn't like it to spread to my Ewes as they are due to lamb in March. Will let you know how we get on  Hopefully there won't be any need for spraying or injecting eyelids as I find normal injections stressful enough as it is sometimes!

[Womble]

@Clydeview1  - if you haven't already, get him separated from the others ASAP. It's highly contagious, especially at this time of year when they're banging heads together at troughs and hay feeders.

[Clydeview1]

@Womble I will do ill separate him once I'm back and treating him anyway, I'm assuming he will be okay outside on his own as long as he can see the others and has everything he needs?

[Womble]

It's one of those circumstances where you have to balance conflicting needs. He might not be right happy on his own, but he'll cope. Better that than have it go through the whole flock anyway.

[SallyintNorth]

Are they eating haylage / silage? 

[Clydeview1]

@SallyintNorth they are eating hay/haylage at the moment as we've had some snow over the past week

[SallyintNorth]

Okay, there's a thing called "silage eye" which you have to watch out for in cattle.  One of the signs is cloudiness.  Might be worth mentioning that they've just gone onto haylage to the vet.