[Julia1521]

Hi guys,

One of my sows has had a bit of a limp for the last few weeks and when I checked her over I found a small vertical crack in one of her hooves. It doesn't look very deep at least from what I can see and she doesn't mind me touching it at all. I'm not sure if this is what's causing her limp the people I got her from before said she had had an on and off limp for a while so it could be more arthritic. I'm going to get the vet out to check. In the meantime I wondered what everyone else does to treat cracks.

I've been bathing it with warm water and Epsom salt every day and spraying it with purple hoof spray to try and keep it clean. I saw hoof paint for horses is recommended but works by drying the hoof out so I've avoided this the last few weeks as the weather has been so dry anyway I dont want to make the hoof too dry and brittle. Now it's a bit wetter I'm thinking of trying the hoof paint instead of the spray. Would be intrested to know what everyone thinks though. I've herd people on other forums talking about superglue but I would worry about trapping bacteria in.

Its about halfway up the hoof so has a long way to go until it grows out.

Any advice would be great!

[harmony]

I don't think that the crack will be causing the lameness. It's not uncommon in older pigs and I don't think most people would do anything with it.