Hooves

I just finished the December round of hoof trimming. Twenty one sets of feet! I use the stanchion to hold the animals and do the trimming myself. I use both the Felco brand hoof trimmers (pictured first) and the orange handled hoof trimmers (pictured second). They each bring different, needed attributes to trimming.

The popular "orange handled" trimmers are great for smaller, thinner hooves, especially good for yearlings and kids. They are light-weight, small, and easy to manipulate to trim tight areas of the hoof. I also like to use these to do the final touches on thick walled hooves. These are reasonably affordable, priced at about $20. They can be resharpened quite a few times, but don't seem to last quite as long as a set of blades for the Felco.

I like the Felco hoof trimmers for larger, thicker walled hooves. They are much easier to get the leverage needed to cut through tough hoof walls. The model I have (Felco 50) has a rotating handle. The thumb handle rotates, reducing the amount of friction and the incidence of blisters on my hands. It does take a bit of getting used to working with the rotating handle, but once mastered, it's a great tool. Felco also makes a model with regular handles (Felco 51). These trimmers are a rather expensive initial investment, $60 to $70. The company makes replacement blades and other parts, so over time the price evens out some. I find that with resharpening, these blades last longer than the orange handled trimmers. (A little hint: Premier 1 Sheep Supplies has the best price that I have seen on these trimmers.)

This fall has been very wet and muddy in areas around the barns. I discovered that some of the goats have the beginnings of interdigital dermatitis. So, trimming took a bit longer than normal as I disinfected the trimmers between each goat. This is the first time in my time as a breeder that I have encountered this. I called a few of my goat breeder friends for advice. Zinc sulfate powder was the recommendation. So I'm off to find some of this to treat their feet with. I'm hoping that with the frozen ground of winter, their feet won't be wet anymore and that having drier feet will also help clear up this problem.