feet - is it me

Inger · Post by **Inger** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 10:08 pm

We do not trim our cows' feet. Our 9 year old bull (Salty) still has excellant feet.

I have had two female lines - usually the short-legged members, that have longer toes. But what causes them to be culled, is the arthritis that they were prone to.

Hopefully by crossing the long-legged members of these two lines with our 'good-footed' bull, I can remove the foot issue from our herd. I only have a few representatives from these two lines, so its not a big problem for us.

The hills and the amount of walking the cows have to do to reach water, means that their toes are kept to a reasonable length.

As an aside, whenever I have fed our sheep some pellets regularly, their feet tended to grow quicker and needed trimming more often or the rate of foot rot due to overgrow of the outer edge of the toes, folding over and traping dirt, would increase.

So my theory is that this hardfeed has the effect of increasing foot problems in sheep, so if they can get by on just grass, its all to the better. Perhaps a similar situation occurs in cows that have to be fed hardfeeds over Winter?

ann · Post by **ann** » Sat Oct 04, 2008 9:20 pm

I have to house my cattle in winter and with the current climate we seem to be experiencing most of mine get their feet trimmed about every two years, however where I have sold cattle to people who can keep them out all year this problem does not appear to happen. Yes you can leave them to break the long growth off but this can result in painful cracks in the hoofs. Interestingly my own home bred bull who is now nearly 7 has never had his feet trimmed and of the other bulls I have owned it was a short legged bull that needed his feet doing. The main problem with a lot of dexter is that they do not have the heel depth so grow long toes if they are not constantly walking on hard ground, and i don't think anything look worse than neglected feet on an animal.
However I will not tolerate deformed feet and I have a heifer from a line with very good feet who definitely does not have good feet and she is sadly destined for the table which is a shame as she is a sweetie, but sentiment and good breeding do not go hand in hand.