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Dick Brzozowski: Hi, my name is Dick Brzozowski, an extension educator with the University
of Maine Cooperative Extension, and I'm the principal investigator for a research project
for SARE, Northeast SARE, on foot rot, and elimination of foot rot on farms in the Northeast.
Part of foot rot prevention is proper trimming. So today I'm going to show you how to properly
trim the feet of a sheep. Depending on the season, the weather, the breed of sheep, even
of the color of the pigment of the hooves make a difference on how fast they grow. Typically,
in my experience -- this is black-hoofed sheep -- and typically I've found that the blacked-hoofed
sheep, typically their hooves grow slower than a white-pigmented hoof sheep.
Foot rot is a contagious disease that is detrimental to sheep. When they have foot rot they can't
move appropriately, they're on their knees grazing. So the productivity, performance,
and even breeding -- a ram with foot rot probably wouldn't be able to mount a ewe for breeding.
You'll probably want to trim at least two to three times a year at a minimum. And some
breeds, as I mentioned before, you may need to trim every month, or 10 times a year perhaps.
So it really depends on how fast those hooves are growing.
She's a small ewe so I can just turn her and flip her around for you to see. But as you
can see her hooves are cloven, so two sides, they're symmetrical. The tips are called toes
or digits. The back is a heel, and the pad itself is the sole. Interior though is called
an axial surface, or an axial wall. As a kid I learned how to trim feet in 4-H, but I never
learned about trimming that interior wall and that's really important, especially for
getting rid of foot rot.
The tools you'll use in trimming feet vary. They're shears or knives, and I recommend
both because each tool does a specific job. These are three different types of shears
or trimmers. This one has a serrated edge for probably bigger hooves, or for rams, or
some older ewes, or some breeds of sheep that have really big feet. So you want to make
sure that you have some nice sharp shears.
And then the other tools are hoof knives. I've got three different kinds here, they
come in either double-blade -- here's a small one with two sides to it -- and the edges
on both sides are cutting edges. This one has a cutting edge all the way down, and a
partial edge here. And this one here is a left-handed knife with the cutting side only
on one side. You want to make sure that these are sharp when you're using them.
And if you have a sheep with foot rot, or any kind of infection on her feet, or his
feet, you want to make sure that you're dipping the tools into a disinfectant solution. I
have Nolvasan solution here, it's a disinfectant that used on farms pretty commonly. So you
want to make sure that you're not going to spread the disease from one hoof to another.
So right now I'll show you to trim. Look at this hoof. I can see some growth coming in.
You want to make sure that that's trimmed off. So I trim right to the pad. Try not to
trim excessively, because you don't want to draw too much blood. If you do have blood
drawn you want to use a blood stopper, a powder, and have that available.
But you can see as I've taken... you can see the tissue, the dark, the white, and then
the sole, you can sort of see how her foot, hoof, grows just by the different coloration
of her pad.
Most people think, "Well, I'm done now." But that's not true, that's what I used to think
too. But you really need to take off this interior, this axial surface or axial wall,
off, to make sure that you get all that out. Because that's a place where growth of bacteria
that causes foot rot can live, inside between the tissues. She's not infected, but I'm going
to disinfect the tools each time anyway.
By scooping out with this sharp knife, just paring it off, you see the difference between
this side and this side now, see how I've taken just the interior, that axial portion
off. Do the same for this side now. Now she's a fairly young lamb, so she doesn't an excess
of growth there, but some of the older ewes, or rams, they would have excess of growth
there and that would be a prime location for that bacteria to grow that causes foot rot.
So here's one that's been trimmed and one that hasn't been trimmed. Another part you
need to be conscious of as a sheep producer is this little area in between the hooves,
that's called inter-digital, and that's where foot scald takes place.
Foot scald is different than foot rot. Foot scald is caused by a certain bacteria as well,
which plays a role in foot rot. But if you have foot scald it would be reddening of the
tissue of the skin in between the digits. She's nice and clean, you don't see any reddening.
Foot rot would be you'd have a foul smell, you would have tissue that would be rotting,
some of it would be deformed, the foot would be deformed. You'd know just from the smell.
It's a real putrid smell because it's tissue rotting.
Now her back hoof and her front hoof are sort of shaped slightly differently. Sometimes
the toes are longer on the back hoof. See, I'll do this back hoof at this point, holding
the fore-hoof in front. You can see it right here, I've got it so tight you can almost
see the capillaries in that foot, you can start seeing the blood just under the surface.
If you make them bleed you'll just want to make sure it stops and keep them clean, put
them on a clean surface. After this process of trimming, especially if you had foot rot
on your property, you'd want to be foot bathing with a 10% zinc solution, zinc-sulfate solution,
sorry.
You can see how I've trimmed all the excess off, I've trimmed down to her pad, she's nice
and clean. Some people make the mistake of cutting the tips of the toe off. You don't
want excess growth out there, but you don't want to have a square-nosed toe because that's
a place that the tissue could divide and you'll have trouble with bacteria getting in there.
The bacteria that causes foot rot is only viable at 45 degrees Fahrenheit and above
so, it can live though in a manure pack in a barn inside. So you could have foot rot
at any time of year in any part of the country. But it only lives about two weeks without
any animals. So if it's in the ground outside it's only going to live two weeks out on the
pasture.
But you want to make sure that you're not putting clean sheep back on dirty pasture,
so you want to wait that time out. The big part of prevention of foot rot is never getting
it on your property. So be very careful about what animals come on your property, even the
people that come on your property. Have a bio-security plan so you can prevent that
disease from getting on your property.
If you do bring a ram in for breeding, or some replacement ewes, make sure that they
go into isolation for at least three weeks. And trim their hooves and see if they have
healthy feet as well as their whole body... if their whole being is healthy.
You can see how she's standing. She's standing nice and flat on her feet, not favoring one
leg or another. So that's what you want to do, watch your flock, and watch how they move.
See who's limping, see who is maybe kneeling to eat, that's a telltale sign that you've
got some problems in the flock.
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