The Bovine Bugle

Cow pedicures--Ah, what price beauty?

Okay...so it's not that beautiful, but it's necessary...

We had a hoof trimmer come to the farm today to trim the hooves of about a dozen of the cows. Most of our cows never need trimming since they are out walking to and from pasture and keep their hooves worn down naturally. The few that we needed done were cows that had "toes" a little too long because of injury, because of getting a little more grain than they needed, or because it was in their family history that they were passed down poor feet.

John arrived at 7 AM, and by 7:30 we were starting on the first cow. The hoof trimming trailer he uses has a chute that the cow walks into, then the cow is secured to a tilting table as the table tilts and rises up. The whole process takes about 5-10 minutes, and doesn't bother the cow at all. Right after we let the girls out of the chute, they went right to pasture and began grazing as if nothing happened. The tools John uses are a small hand grinder equipped with a special disc to trim the hoofs and a hoof knife to trim and clean the hoof when needed.

By trimming the cow's hooves, their feet stay healthy and it keeps them from developing more serious problems that could cause lameness. We try to have a hoof trimmer come at least once a year, and we usually only have to do a small percentage of the herd since the cows are out walking and exercising a good part of the year.

On large conventional farms where the cows are kept inside on concrete year-round, hoof trimmers like John will visit the farms 2 or 3 times a year and trim all the cows. For a herd of, say, 400 cows that would be over $3600 per visit to have the hooves trimmed. Healthy feet are just another one of many benefits of having your dairy animals out grazing during the grazing season.

Got a question about cow hooves, or anything else on an organic dairy farm? Write me here and I'll answer as best I can!

--Jonathan, Howmars Farm
Franklin, Vermont

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Posted by Blogger Chris at August 3, 2005 09:16 PM