Sheep Farmer Lynnie Hutchison shares her success with Pink Eye which affected her flock during lambing, a really stressful time for the ewes and their lambs.
Just after completing the HAWL course, we suffered an outbreak of pink eye at lambing time which came on very quickly. Pink Eye, for those of you lucky enough NOT to have had experience of it, spreads rapidly and often begins with watery eyes then a thick discharge can appear before the eye goes cloudy and develops ulcers with a red band moving across the cornea.
Above: Lynnie and her sheep
The ewes were in two groups – twins and singles – and some in both groups were quickly affected, (we were feeding beans and oats in troughs and I suspect that the dust may have tipped the balance). Some of my ewes very quickly became blind, not what you want when they have new lambs at foot. Others had slightly impaired vision.
As we had never had pink eye before we spoke to one of the homeopathic vets who teaches on the HAWL course who helped us differentiate the cases and choose remedies.
As we had never had pink eye on the farm before we spoke to one of the homeopathic vets who teaches on the HAWL course who helped us differentiate the cases and choose remedies based on four stages of the condition:
Merc corr and euphrasia for the ones with watery eyes, just beginning
Euphrasia, pulsatilla and arg nit for the ones with thick discharge
Merc corr or arg nit for those with ulcers starting
Silcea for those nearly better but not quite kicking it off
The affected ewes were put into a separate group to stop the spread and split again into various groups according to their recovery so that we could give the remedies more easily. We noted the width of the red band on the cornea to assess which way the condition was going in order to be sure of and monitor our success. The few remaining stubborn cases responded to the remedy conium mac.
In the early days, threatened with a difficult situation the confidence to give the remedies a go could sometimes be a difficult decision.
As the years go by and our knowledge increases so does our confidence that we’re making the right decisions. For us it’s not been about costs but as I think back over these few examples I realise we have also saved a fortune.
In summary I’d say the HAWL course gave us more confidence to use a bigger variety of homeopathic remedies, to repertorise more, and to trust my choice of remedy would work.
When we go back through the vet med records at our annual Soil Association inspection it’s heartening to see how few entries there are now and the list of remedies which we have used to good effect.