If your cows and calves are weeping, call a vet very fast!

Last week I got a call from a farmer in Ruiru whose cows and calves were tearing up consistently. No animal, however, appeared to be having a big problem with the eyes and they were all eating normally.

The cows had reduced milk and the calves did not appear to be thriving well when compared to the time they were not weeping.

The tearing-up had been going on for about two weeks. The farmer said she initially thought the animals were reacting to dust from the feed.

She responded in the negative when I enquired if she had changed the feed in the past two weeks.

When I visited the farm, I found most of the animals were tearing up as Jessy, the farmer, had explained.

On further examination, I found some calves had tiny specks of pus in the tears. The eyes were starting to get injected, meaning the blood vessels of the eye were enlarging to deliver more blood to the organ.

I also noted there were many flies in the cattle shed. They were flying around, perching on the walls and on the animals.

Eye discharge

Most of the animals had one to three flies feeding on the eye discharge at the inside corners of the eyes.

Other flies perched on the teat ends of milking cows, feeding on milk remnants at the opening of the teat canals.

I diagnosed bacterial eye infection spread by the flies. Dust was innocent in this case. I suspected some of the milkers could also be having mastitis since the fly load in the dairy unit was too high. I quickly carried out a mastitis test on all the lactating cows.

Fortunately, only two had what we call low grade subclinical mastitis. This is udder bacterial infection that is diagnosed using a chemical called California mastitis reagent.

The udder with this infection looks normal but milk production is reduced.

Jessy was lucky she had just called on time before the infection intensified both in the eyes and the udders of her cows. It appeared most of the tearing was due to irritation by the flies rather than actual bacterial infection.

Since I could not know by visual observations the animals that had eye infection, I treated all those tearing up with an antibiotic eye ointment.

Antibiotic tubes

I also instructed Jessy to apply the ointment in the eyes of each affected animal twice daily for three days.

I treated the two cows that had mastitis with antibiotic tubes and left some to be infused every 24 hours for three days. I explained to Jessy the disturbance by the flies and infection of the udder were the causes of the reduced milk production and the loss of thrift in the calves.

Flies irritate the animals and tend to keep them active throughout the day.

This causes the animals to spend a lot of energy resources on movement which they would have used to grow or produce milk. The body also spends its nutritional resources fighting the infection being introduced into the body constantly by the flies.

Lastly, I briefed Jessy on other problems brought about by flies.

Depending on the type and load of bacteria introduced into the eyes or the teat, full blown mastitis and eye infection may result. Some animals even lose eyesight while others may also lose some quarters of the udder or even the whole udder.

Jessy was concerned that in the past, she had only a few flies in the cattle shelter.

She was surprised that the flies had greatly increased to cause her serious problems.

I explained that flies may increase due to new introductions or changes in the management of manure. She clicked it. She had recently reorganised her waste disposal.

Spreading manure

Instead of spreading the manure to dry, she had introduced a main drain, which collected the waste water and manure into a cesspool from where the liquid manure would flow to the bananas.

She had introduced this improvement to reduce the amount of labour in cleaning the cattle shelter and applying the manure to her bananas.

I checked the cesspool and sure enough, it had provided a good breeding environment for the flies.

The maggots were evident at the edges of the cesspool.

I advised she periodically sprays the edges of the cesspool with the same chemical she uses for spraying cattle against flies and ticks.

She would also use a suitable insecticide in the cattle shelter, placed in positions not accessible to cattle.

In my practice, I have found one insecticide that works very well with milk.

Milk is highly palatable to flies due to its nutrition and ease of consumption.  When mixed with the insecticide, it attracts flies to their death in large numbers.

Jessy has since reported to me the flies have reduced heavily and the cows are no longer tearing up.

[email protected]