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Can Pink Eye Cause Bull Infertility?

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North Ridge Ranching

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Will G said:
It's been my experience a bull with pinkeye or footrot will be sterile for quite awhile.....Good luck....

Does anybody know more about this? If the pink eye is a result of IBR or BVD complex I could understand, but if it is just conjunctivitis caused by a bacteria, do you think it would cause temporary infertility in a bull?
 
I would think it would have to do with an increased temp that would cause it? Of course both eyes would lead to other issues!
 
Just Ranchin said:
I would think it would have to do with an increased temp that would cause it? Of course both eyes would lead to other issues!

I would tend to agree with the temperature issue, I wouldn't suspect it would persist very long though.

I know if you were blindfolded and wearing cement shoes, you would still find your way around. :wink: :lol: :lol:
 
I agree with the temp. issue. Pinkeye will be painful, dangerous for the bull in a multi-sire setting and may cause a one to look a little cockeyed. :wink:
 
I can not find anywhere that says it does on the internet. I know foot rot will from the fever, but not sure if pink eye creates a high enough fever to hurt semen quality.
We are having trouble with pink eye this year also. Treating the cows for flys now.
 
From what i can find if they are willing to play thru the pain then it should be okay. where they laying off by themselves of constantly looking after the cows. We have one that has pink eye. We gotta treat him but as of today was still looking after the hefiers and moving thru out the herd, there is also another one out with him.
 
North Ridge Ranching said:
I have now had trouble with 5 of my 6 bulls this year. I am a little nervous about what calving and preg checking will be like.

How many cows per bull? How many acres and what kind of terrain are your pastures? And were all the bulls together with the cows or in seperate pastures? And if it's none of my beeswax that's fine. :D
 
leanin' H said:
North Ridge Ranching said:
I have now had trouble with 5 of my 6 bulls this year. I am a little nervous about what calving and preg checking will be like.

How many cows per bull? How many acres and what kind of terrain are your pastures? And were all the bulls together with the cows or in seperate pastures? And if it's none of my beeswax that's fine. :D

All of my bulls were running in seperate pastures by themselves with 25 to 30 head per bull. Pastures are all flat prairie with some poplar bush in each pasture. The one I found today is the first one with pink eye. One had foot rot, one had a shoulder injury, one has a swelled hock and the fifth one was bought to replace the one with the shoulder injury and I found him with a laceration on his business stick 4 days ago. Luckily the shoulder injury has healed up, so I put them out together for the last couple weeks of breeding.
 
North Ridge Ranching said:
Will G said:
It's been my experience a bull with pinkeye or footrot will be sterile for quite awhile.....Good luck....

Does anybody know more about this? If the pink eye is a result of IBR or BVD complex I could understand, but if it is just conjunctivitis caused by a bacteria, do you think it would cause temporary infertility in a bull?

I'm for sure no expert.....But from what I have seen here over the last 25 years a bull recovering from pinkeye could be no good for 60 days....I hope your bulls recover soon. Again I'm no expert...
 
Two stains of pink eye in this area of the US. Treatment for the second stain is Baytil one full dose subq.in neck. 2cc Baytril spray in eyes with two of the highest power fly tags (I used Double barrel) that works. Fly tag all the bulls even if they do not have pink eye this year. The seocnd stain is highly contagous in this part of the US. This treatment really works. Only one time treatment. However not sure which stain cattle have across North Amercia. This new stain will put a bull blind in a day. Treat when eye starts to water. The bulls that I teated passed semen tests. Fly usually carry pink eye and we spray alot till this year (not many flys for some reason) Pink eye will come back on the treated animal in the same eye in a few years. LA300 was the other medicine I had used for years. I did not have much long term results with vetercide, it worked for a few days then came back.
I do not like to use old remidies but everything is worth a try. I just like the one time FULL treaement with BAYTRIL. A lost eye still needs to be patched or stiched.
With as good a year people are having in the north country it maybe grass seeds in the eye.
 
North Ridge Ranching said:
leanin' H said:
North Ridge Ranching said:
I have now had trouble with 5 of my 6 bulls this year. I am a little nervous about what calving and preg checking will be like.

How many cows per bull? How many acres and what kind of terrain are your pastures? And were all the bulls together with the cows or in seperate pastures? And if it's none of my beeswax that's fine. :D

All of my bulls were running in seperate pastures by themselves with 25 to 30 head per bull. Pastures are all flat prairie with some poplar bush in each pasture. The one I found today is the first one with pink eye. One had foot rot, one had a shoulder injury, one has a swelled hock and the fifth one was bought to replace the one with the shoulder injury and I found him with a laceration on his business stick 4 days ago. Luckily the shoulder injury has healed up, so I put them out together for the last couple weeks of breeding.

That's the toughest part about running one bull per bunch....if he has troubles, no backup to cover cows. And multiple bulls rise cane as well knocking on each other. I was just curious and i hope you find out when ya preg em' they are all settled. We have been really fortunate and had zero (knock on wood) pink eye or foot rot. I used to summer a bunch on a big meadow and seemed to always have foot trouble. We made up for no eye or foot problems by killing 6 head of calves with summer pnemonia though! :?
 
With some of the swamps I run cattle in I used to have foot rot but in the last 10 years I have kept the cattle on a good mineral program and the problems have gone away - - -Knock on wood!
 
My hereford bull had pinkeye in both eyes this summer that LA300 pretty much cleared up and I had him tested a couple of weeks ago and he tested good at 94%.
One eye wasn't all the way clear so I gave him another shot of LA300 while the vet had him in the chute and after a week that eye looked good.
 
Sooner Fan, That's what I like to hear.

Thanks alot everybody for the info. I am hoping the one with pink eye is OK because one of my landlords called last night to let me know I have another bull down with what appears to be footrot. That would make 6 out of 6 bulls with one form of problem or another this year. :evil: :evil:

Calves look great this year, but what will be coming next year, i am not sure about. Cross my fingers and hope for the best. :mad: :mad: :cry2: :cry2:

Also have had a couple good neighbors offer some help if I need it. Friends like that are hard to find. :) :)
 
Took in a Bull seminar last winter sponsored by the WCVM.....bulls with foot rot or other severe infection will run a fever.....any semen in developement will be effected & you can expect a bull to be shooting blanks in approximately 21 days...amount of time missed will depend on severity of infection. Antibiotics did not show any effect in the studies & probably got the bulls back breeding faster. Sure matches up with what I've seen over the years.
We use footrot vaccines in all our bulls..... while it doesn't entirely prevent infections it is easier to treat and get bulls back working. The side effects of short term sterility will show up big time in breeding percentages as well as calving intervals.....if raising cattle was easy every one would be dong it!! :lol:
 
I haven't heard of pink-eye causing infertility. One thing to be careful
of is treating pink-eye or hoof rot with an antibiotic (LA-200) because THAT will make them infertile for awhile.

If you are having pink-eye and hoofrot problems, you should try a
different mineral or are you feeding mineral?
 

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