Herefords with the white/pink pigment around their eyes, were thought to be more susceptible to pinkeye. We see no more problems with the herefords than any others. In fact, we have 75-80% black cattle. Mostly angus and angus crosses. It has hit every color cattle we have... black, the few herefords, a couple of the char x angus, one of the few red hided cattle. No one seems immune to it and it has hit a couple of pastures more than others. A couple years ago there was a couple friends with cattle that were having a horrible time with it and it seemed to be a new strain, and we had maybe 2 cases in all the cattle.
So it seems this is our year. We vaccinated for pinkeye several years and actually seemed to see our cases rise from very few to quite a few. Quit vaccinating and it dropped way down. Haven't vaccinated for it in at least 10 years.
One thing we do find is that some of the animals seem to have a natural resistance to it and when we keep heifers out of these families of cows, the off spring seem to be more immune to it also. So we have been keeping more heifers from the "more immune" cows. Another thing, I think that they do build up immunity because we very often get pinkeye in cattle that we buy and bring in. Hence it seems to follow out that they do not have the immunity to the "bugs" on our place like the cattle that are born and raised here.
But, you are right, there was thoughts around that pink and white skin/hair around the eyes meant that they were more likely to get pinkeye. Yet, straight bred charolais cattle, with the pink noses, seldom seem to get it. The ones that have the dark/grey/black noses are usually a cross with a black hided animal, and often their hair coats are more smokey in color, yet they get it just as much proportionately as the blacks.
