Yesterday I trimmed sheep hooves. I love working outside and getting dirty- so dirty then when you shower afterwards, the water runs with mud even before you get out the soap. It was sunny and hot. I sunburned a bit, staying out longer than I had planned with no sunscreen on. We’ve had so little sun this summer that sunscreen isn’t yet back in my morning habit!
Halfway through, a neighbor stopped by and we chatted for a while. Maggie, who was already hot from working, disappeared into a drainage ditch to cool herself, waiting like an alligator until I needed her again. Just as soon as I walked back to the ewes still waiting in a pen for their maintenance, she came sloshing out and pushed them into the corner for me again. I couldn’t do without her!
I used to have Maggie just bunch the ewes up in a corner and I’d work on them one by one, keeping track in my mind of which ones were done. Now that’s getting hard. So I moved them all into the channel and penned them in the small space between the two fields. As I worked on each sheep, I kicked out out the gate into the channel, so I could keep track of how many were left undone. Maggie kept the queue of waiting sheep bunched for me. This worked well.
I am pleased with their hoof health, it’s much better than last summer when almost all the sheep were struggling with footrot. I still have three ewes with serious trouble, but the rest of the sheep were in good shape, so I think I’m on the right track with my mineral feeding, and just need to do more tweaking.
I have made up a new system to keep track of foot health. I used to type notes into my Palm on every sheep. But now that’s taking too much time. So instead I note a “custom event” called “ht” for “hoof trim” and I put a score, 1 through 4, after it to remind myself how bad or good the feet were. I’m going back through my database and translating all my notes into this system. This will help me tell at a glance of the event history what a particular sheep’s foot trend is, as well as see overall trends in the flock. I wish I could dump out a report and analyze it in Excel, but my Ranch Manager software doesn’t yet have such a feature.
Some of the sheep were a little late to shed this year since the weather has been cool. #KRK33 sported this shoulder shawl until the last days of June before it finally peeled off.
I had been giving Shaggy sheep some extra time to shed, and indeed a lot of her shag was coming off. She is #33’s daughter. But there was some persistent wool on her backline that though loose, was just too entangled to free itself. So I trimmed it with some blade shears. It only took me a couple of minutes to clean her up, as the rest of her body sports proper short hair.
But still, having to do any wool maintenance at all is not desirable. I’m still waffling on keeping her or not. Her lamb is a shedder, as are her sisters and parents, so she’s some kind of odd throwback. She is a good ewe otherwise, and I’m considering doubling my flock size again this fall. So she might get to stay just because it’s easier to keep her than to buy a ewe to replace her.
The Collie Farm Blog 
July 13, 2010 at 6:01 am
Well, I ended up buying some new goats this spring, and they had not gotten enough mineral in their system so had lots of problems with hoof rot (well, it’s a fungus that lodges between the toes). After trying this and that, decided to try putting some sulfur powder mixed with some copper sulphate powder into some peroxide and soaking the feet in that. While I have a buckling still limping, some of the other hard core cases cleared right up.
You sure have some nice looking sheep. Shaggies daughter is georgous!!
I traded a lamb for a/ ohh, I can’t remember, like a suffolk? ewe. Looking to add some size to my herd. Well truth is she was bottle fed, so maybe she won’t be so darn wild!! lol
July 13, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Doris, I’ve always heard that a copper sulfate soak works wonders for clearing up foot problems. Well, I think if you soak ANY organism in copper sulfate, it will die! 😀 I’m not set up very well to do footbaths, and I worry about the extra absorption of copper into the sheeps’ bloodstream since I’m already feeding them “lethal” doses of copper. But maybe I’ll have to try it if I can’t get my three limpers fixed via diet. Thanks for the compliment, I think they are looking good, though I’m always thinking about how I could improve them…
Boy, suffolk, well that should add some size for you! I am always blown away by their size, them and Lincolns,when I see them at the fair. They are like ponies! But, that massive growth is also related to too-lean, tough meat; so I think they are probably best used as a terminal sire or other cross, like you are doing.
Michelle
July 13, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Hi Michelle,
I have heard that copper sulfate, though still sold by some companies, hardens the hooves too much and stains the wool (for wool breeds of course). Most are using zinc sulfate now. We have a footrot problem (even the lambs are affected) even though we have footrot resistant breeds that originated in the UK. I have vowed to beat it so am starting a footbath program and more trimming. We have a very small flock, so it’s more feasible. Could you tell me what you did to tweak your mineral program? I would be very interested in that.
Thank you, Marianne
July 14, 2010 at 1:04 am
Oh, gosh, Marianne, I’ve been going nutty over this issue! What got me started was reading Pat Coleby’s book, in which she asserts that most of the diseases with with our sheep struggle are merely caused by mineral imbalances and deficiencies. She is controversial, because though she has decades of practical experience and anecdotal evidence, she lacks a scientific degree or scientific data to back up her theories. But she still has a huge fan base!
I think there is at least a grain of truth in her argument, that nutrition is to blame for a lot of chronic disease which we tend to write off as “normal.” At least this has been my experience in making my own dog food- all those stupid allergies, flea problems, dirty teeth etc went away once I ditched the kibble. So I do think sometimes it’s good to question common wisdom and convention.
I struggle with foot rot too (though I think it’s more than just foot rot, I think I have delamination problems which may be leading to foot rot infestation). All the local old timers tell me it’s just the way it is, living in the wet northwest. But I can’t accept that! Pat Coleby says foot problems are usually caused by copper deficiency. And indeed my soil and forage point towards copper tie-up indicators (high iron, molybdenum). So, after much reading, research and consulting others, I started offering my sheep a goat mineral which contains copper. They go nuts for it, every day they look for it. There is risk, for sure, I could lose some, or many sheep, sometime in the future, if they are stressed and have a copper toxicity event. I have found accounts of other people who have had this happen when using the Pat Coleby mineral recommendations.
But, what I’ve found, and I’m not the first, is copper seems to be the key, at least for my sheep. By last November, all my sheep’s feet were near perfect after just a few months eating copper. I’ve been continuing to mess around with it, and I still don’t have it right, but they are much better than last year. It’s hard to experiment when you change feeds at different times of the year, it takes longer to draw conclusions. I think they may need even more copper, but I’m moving cautiously.
I have written a lot in past blog posts about my efforts to figure this out, if you search for the word copper inside the blog, you can read all about my struggles and worries and math! 🙂
Re: copper sulfate foot treatment products, I think the other reason some manufacturers are switching away from it is that people have had sheep die from it- either from absorbing excess copper right through their feet, or from drinking the foot bath. So I think most companies are just avoiding liability by taking copper completely out of any products that are labeled for sheep. Which is unfortunate, because they need SOME copper, and now it’s hard to get it in sheep minerals and feeds at all.
Good luck, let me know if you find solutions too- I’m always interested in hearing about how others have addressed foot rot, it sure is a frustrating problem!
Michelle
July 14, 2010 at 3:48 am
Thanks Michelle for the info. I will take a look at your past blogs on copper. I just read an article, either in Sheep or The Shepherd, about the fact that sheep do need copper, though all that is ever heard is “don’t feed copper” because of the toxicity issues. I have read Pat Coleby’s book – I will admit, it was a little overwhelming in the first read. I thought about just going out and buying a bag of every mineral and just feeding them all 🙂 I definitely need to read it again. I do wonder sometimes if we truly have foot rot or rather the delamination issues that you speak of. The vet who did a healthy flock check for us in 2008 said we had it, but it doesn’t always present as described in all the books – foul smell, symptoms of infection, etc. but rather just the separation of the hoof walls. I do appreciate the information and look forward to hearing how your flock’s feet health progress.
Marianne
July 15, 2010 at 12:20 am
Marianne, I agree, I had the same reaction to Pat Coleby’s book at first too, I put it back on the shelf for a long time. But in being frustrated with this foot problem and going back to her writing several times, I finally decided to buckle down and go further with what she was saying. A blog reader helped me a lot with where to find the ingredients in Pat’s recipe; as I think that is one of the most daunting aspects, is where to get these weird, unfamiliar chemicals.
But in the meantime, I had my forage tested, and realized that I really need to customize my mix, I have a very unusual profile, and Pat’s standard mix doesn’t complement it very well. And Pat does mentioned in her book that ideally you should customize your mix to your forage and soil tests, but if you can’t (like if you buy most of your feed and it doens’t come with nutrient profiles), then her standard mix is the next best thing. I have a huge spreadsheet comparing Pat’s mix to all the brands of minerals I have access to. And I found that Purina’s goat mix fits my profile the closest, though it’s still not ideal for my situation.
So next on my to-do list is to visit with the local feed mill and investigate the cost of making me a custom mix and learn from a nutritionist what they think I should do, given my lab tests and my sheep’s feet issues. I had attended a seminar recently taught by one of these folks, and was pretty blown away by what dairy nutrition scientists know about what goes on in a ruminant’s body. A LOT of scientific research has been done on this, so I have hopes that they can offer me expanded and customed advice that’s above and beyond what I can get out of Pat’s book. And I figure it could be that more is known now than when Pat wrote book. I may also return to Pat’s idea of offering all of the minerals in separate bowls, and allow the sheep to eat what they crave, as that seems like an inexpensive option. It’s just harder to set up in a pasture rotation, I’m working on that too!
Michelle
July 15, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Oh, by the way, Michelle, both sunburn and sunblock is now a thing of the past for me. At least when I am up on taking my nutritionals. Both my daughter and myself who had been unexposed previously, inadvertantly spent many hours in the sun only to discover that we were very red. Previous experience included much pain and misery along with peeling a few days later. Even though I was prepared to take some tylenol (which I don’t do easily) I kept procrastinating as the pain just remained mild. And amazingly enough, no peeling!!! Wow! Whole new experience for me. And exactly the same for my daughter!!! Lol, hard to believe, but it must not be my imagination as we both had the same experience. She is also up on her nutritionals as she just had a baby (hbac) 8 weeks ago. Just thought I’d share. =)
Oh, and my thinking on the critters that still have hoof rot is they may have some resistance to absorbing the copper they need so soaking their foot in it I wouldn’t think would overwhelm their system. Some of those hard core cases I mentioned earlier didn’t clear up with just soaking in copper water, nor did they clear up when the sulfur was applied, so the mix must be more potent? If I had zinc sulphate on hand I’d add that to the mix, lol. You could just mix some up and put it in a cottage cheese container and dip each foot in it as you are clipping their feet. Anyways that’s what I do.
Also, regarding the delamination, I always assumed that the foot rot was what caused the delamination? But you think the delamination is happening first and the foot rot fungus is then invading? hmmmm. . . . hadn’t thought of that.
Doris
July 16, 2010 at 12:19 am
Doris, that’s interesting about your sunburn experiences. Though I’m pretty milky white 😛 I usually don’t have really bad side effects from burning. Given the thinning ozone, I’m just not keen on the possibility of getting skin cancer, I’d rather take my chances with the sunscreen chemicals. Even wiser would probably be to just wear long sleeves, pants and a good hat; but I hate being hot…
Congratulations on a new grandbaby!
Re: absorption of copper, I wonder if it isn’t absorption resistence so much (that seems like kind of an undefined term for me) is more a tie-up problem. They can’t absorb it if it’s chemically bound with other things in their diet, such that their digestive system cannot extract and use the nutrient. For me, that’s sulfur, iron, molybdenum which all measure high in my soil and forage. But that could be separate from absorbing it directly through tissues into the bloodstream. If their feet have open wounds, then dipping them in a strong mixture of copper would certainly alter their exposure in a way I could not measure. For now, I want to contain their copper intake to stuff I can calculate in a spreadsheet, so if I ever go too far, I have metrics to guide me in how to back down.
I think that sulfur and zinc are also important minerals the body uses in hoof tissue; so if an animal was low in those, even killing the footrot bacteria with copper might not be enough to arm the animal with the ability to grow new healthy hoof horn. So maybe that’s why the combination worked better for you? I would imagine absorbing anything strong directly into the bloodstream via a wound has to be much more effective than ingesting it. At least, that’s what a meth addict would say! 😀
I’m not sure about the delamination either. It’s hard to quantify what the foot problems are, since it’s not always clear whether it’s scald, rot, or something else. I definitely see classic footrot sometimes, with its distinct odor. But other times, not. My sheep that are struggling get really weird hoof tissue growth- it grows really fast and crazy, creating a huge “elf shoe” within a few weeks, as the body seems to work to heal and replace tissue. But their biggest problem seems to be that despite all that hoof horn growing, it cannot mend the seam between the wall and bottom of the hoof, and create what I would think of as a “closed” system into which bacteria can’t enter. That’s why my mind wants to call it delamination- it’s literally the layers of the hoof separating from each other. It seems like horse people talk a lot more about delamination and laminitis than sheep people do, but I wonder if this is part of our problem? A healthy hoof should be rock hard and closed, to where no bacteria can get in, even if you “have it in your pasture.” But if the hoof starts to split open, then viola, bacteria gets in, and also has a nice anaerobic environment in which to thrive. So that’s my theory anyway…
Michelle
July 16, 2010 at 7:25 am
I’m beginning to understand that maybe sunscreen isn’t such a good idea as it stops the absorption of vit D which is a HUGE cancer stopper. just a thought. . . .
Yeah, tie up problem, I agree. Trust a meth addict to have that perspective, lol.
hmmm, that last paragraph you wrote, reminds of something I read about a horse that had delam problems, and they finally figured out that the horse was eating the straw that they were bedding his stall with and that was causing much trouble as there is a lot of (as I recall) sugar in the straw???? hmmm, I’d have to ask my daughter if she can find that article again. I’m wondering if there might be some specific thing they are eating that could be contributing to this problem.?.?
I think your theory makes a lot of sense!
Doris
July 17, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Doris, yes, I suppose there are two extremes: there are the people who essentially wear a burka every time they will be going into the sun for more than two minutes and probably suffer from chronic vitamin D deficiency, because we know it’s hard to synthesize from supplements. And then there are people who regularly burn themselves to a crisp by wearking a bikini in the hot sun for ten hour stretches, just daring dozens of scientific studies that link sunburns and cancer to be wrong. I think I am somewhere in the middle. I am out in the sun (when we have it!) daily for an hour or so doing chores; but if I’m going to be out all day, I wear sunscreen and try my best not to let myself sunburn.
Re: eating straw, that’s interesting, that seems weird that a horse would desire to eat a lot of straw unless he had some issues… My sheep pick through it to find the stray wheat berries, but never just munch straight straw-yuk! My understanding is that straw has relatively little of anything in it, with a TDN of about 4%, it’s mostly just a carbohydrate. But I think that is an issue for horses, as indicated here.
My sheep are on a grass pasture 24/7 that has about 10 varities of grass, plus a diverse crop of other things-clover, buttercup, mustard, dandelion etc. They only see straw for a short time in the winter, I use it for mud control near the water tank. I have a pretty ideal pasture mix, and I don’t have any toxic-to-sheep plants that I’m aware of. But, it’s pretty “hot” feed, at about 23% crude protein. I know that for horses, “lush pasture” is a big hitter for causing foot problems; but I’m not sure whether the concept translates to sheep or not, since they have different stomachs.
I’ve contemplated whether the times when I’ve fed COB seem to have been when their foot health was the best, and it’s pretty low in CP- about 10%. So it’s possible that bringing their CP intake down is a factor that plays in as well. I’m still fairly certain that the copper is a big (or the biggest) component, but I’m thinking that it’s multiple variables. I’ll be feeding COB again in Sept for flushing, so it’ll be interesting to see how that plays in. That’s the hard part about this, is the changing of feed with the seasons, it makes studying changes and relationships a long-term endeavor…
Michelle
July 18, 2010 at 2:20 am
Doris, after I wrote this, and was looking up some more stuff today, I ran across this passage in Pat Coleby’s book. I find her book to be kind of disorganized, and at times I run across things that I missed earlier, or might have been looking for, but couldn’t find when I needed them. She says (page 163):
So yeah, my 23% protein grass could be adding to my woes…
Michelle