As mentioned previously we have been struggling with conjunctivitis in our sheep since the end of January. Once it gets in a flock, it is really hard to get rid of as the bacteria can remain dormant and then resurface at any time and it can become viral.
Ours came in with new sheep who were obviously carriers, they have never shown any symptoms but sadly, all 12 of of our original sheep have, to a greater or lesser degree, suffered with it in either one or both eyes, some only once, some though have had it now 5 or 6 times since the first outbreak some 12 weeks ago.
We may now be winning but it is a case still of a few steps forwards and then the odd one or two backwards.
After various combinations of treatments: Alamycin single jabs, double jabs and in the eye; eye creams; isolating those affected; treating the whole flock at once, even those not affected; using the very expensive Zactran (TWELVE times the price of Alamycin); and washing eyes; we finally, after the fifth outbreak, resorted to the no-treatment approach (as in no ABs)... Why? Well, lots of reasons.
1) we felt we could not keep pumping ABs into our stock without starting to cause resistance issues
2) Alamycin worked brilliantly but was NOT long lasting as sometimes an animal would get a repeat bout within a week (hence trying Zactran which actually turned out to be very ineffective)
3) constantly rounding the sheep up to inject etc was stressful, for them and us, and we all know how stress can add to illness
4) isolating them hadn't worked and we started to feel that only a chance to build up a natural immunity was going to sort this.
It has been bloomin hard to allow the sheep to to become infected and not treat them. We have been using pain relief where we felt we needed too, we make sure they all have plenty of food (hard feed every day as well as hay and grass) plus shelter to escape to, and we have obviously been monitoring and taking very careful notes.

Our no-treatment approach began on 30th March. Eight of out the 12 sheep have had it since that date. Recovery times have varied from a mere two days to 17 days. We currently have Mrs Brown and Muckle still suffering and isolated from the rest as both of them had it badly in both eyes, were virtually blind and lost condition and so we have given them a dedicated eye cream that has helped ease things as well as more pain relief and we are feeding them twice a day.
Annoyingly though, Ness and Bressay, just this morning, have both shown signs of re-infection again, suggesting their immunity through our no-treatment approach has not developed as strongly as we would have liked!

It's all very wearing and is making sheep keeping rather stressful and a bit too much of a worry - we will now have to see how Ness and Bressay cope and whether we will need to intervene again.