The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: andywalt on August 01, 2012, 09:58:37 pm
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Hi All
A few weeks back i had mentioned about how soft our ewes feet were with all that weather, this week I have a group of 17 to trim, and was surprised that 5 of them had a crack between the pad and hard shell of the side of the hoof, and saw that i could actually clean out a load of muck leaving a large hollow cavern slot, I cut away the side of the hoof to let the air in and ive sprayed them with terramycin spray, they are not limping but I hope Ive done the right thing, can you please give me all your comments please it will be nice to hear what you do?
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I wouldn't trim anything if it wasn't limping myself. If it aint broke, dont fix it.
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shelly hoof?
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My OH would do what you did Andy. By cutting away the side of the hoof if soil and muck are crammed up in there, you are preventing anaerobic bacteria from multiplying, which is what you need to do. We would consider that that is broke Stevehants, so we fix it :thumbsup:
The hoof will soon grow back - just check it's coming back in a good shape for walking and all should be hunky-dory :sheep:
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Just to support what FW has said - if you leave the compacted mud you are more likely to have problems. Trim it up and clean it out exposing it to the air, the sheep should be fine so long as you are careful. At times it can be a bit nerve wracking as you seem to be cutting a lot of hoof away. We have used this approach together with a spray of Linco Spectin for the past few years and now hardly get any lame sheep.
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Thanks very much this puts my mind at rest, always nice to double check that your doing the right things, thanks v much
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certainly matches with my vets advice too. Routine trimming of non lame, non shelly hooves sheep is prob not a good idea, but in this case trimming would be appropriate. :thumbsup:
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I concur. Leaving a pocket only leaves room for a problem to develop so in my humble you've done exactly the right thing.
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Defo shelley hoof - my ewes had it themselves this year. The only thing you can do is cut it back as hard as you can, hoof phast them and spray with Terramycin. A mere few days later the improvement will be massive. You defo did the right thing!