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trimming cows hooves ?

Circle M

Well-known member
Another rookie question ,,, i've got a mature cow (thats what they called her at the sale barn inother words OLD) she has real long hooves they curve up at the end they kind of look like a magic Gengies shoes , should i trim them or just let her be ??
 

Silver

Well-known member
Trim them, definetly. About 4" behind the ears :wink:

Seriously, if you keep her you will have generations of foot problems. We have never trimmed feet here, and because of that we never have to, if you see what I mean.
 

Shelly

Well-known member
If you're going to keep her and calve her out, do her a favour and have them trimmed. I'm sure it doesn't feel great walking on the back of her hooves where it joins her legs. My husband bought me a cow like that many, many years ago for an anniversary present, and yes I did keep her because she was a sweetheart, and yes I had her feet trimmed every year, but ............... the bad feet trait didn't pass on to her daughters. All the cows I had and do have mostly go back to that original cow.
 

jkvikefan

Well-known member
I trim feet for a living... That being said, I agree have her trimmed . She will be able to move around and forage with much less discomfort .
Based on the limited information , I would say that this cow over ate on grain at some point in time and developed a text book case of lamanitis. This condition is one that is caused by management rather than heredity and therefore she will not pass this on to her offspring.
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
If we get a long-toed cow, she gets to stay long enough to have a calf. We then rob her calf to put on a good young cow that has lost a calf for one reason or another, and the long-toed cow gets a ride to town.
 

Mike

Well-known member
jkvikefan said:
I trim feet for a living... That being said, I agree have her trimmed . She will be able to move around and forage with much less discomfort .
Based on the limited information , I would say that this cow over ate on grain at some point in time and developed a text book case of lamanitis. This condition is one that is caused by management rather than heredity and therefore she will not pass this on to her offspring.

The only genetics of having those "long toed" animals that I know of is the ones that seem to be more "sickle-hocked".

The hoof must wear evenly at the exact same rate that it is constantly growing.

In the sickle hocked cattle the toes don't seem to wear as evenly as the more "posty" ones that stand up on their toes more.

As in all things, there is a balance.

Yes laminitis, or grain overload (starch), will cause foot problems as well as liver, endocrine, etc.

A neighbor of mine who raises angus bulls blew the feet off of about 100 bulls a few years back by feeding broken waffles ad libitum from nearby frozen waffle factory. They sure put on the pounds though. :shock:
 

alabama

Well-known member
I have thought that the long toed cows carrry a gene for shallow heal set. And I noticed that Genex has added to their phenotypic grading a line for foot angle, either shallow or steep.
I also have a cow that has the long toe trouble. She is raising her second calf this winter and a nice calf he is too but she can't stay here without good feet. She will get a ride to town at weaning. We have too many good footed cows to produce long toed cows.
 

Circle M

Well-known member
sounds like when she has her calf and it is weaned she should head to the sale barn, i am going to throw another rookie question out there ,,,when is it time to wean the calf ??
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Circle M said:
sounds like when she has her calf and it is weaned she should head to the sale barn, i am going to throw another rookie question out there ,,,when is it time to wean the calf ??


I wean mine when the last born is about about 7 months old, other people wean at a specified date, like say October 15th, no matter what.

All my cows calve within a specified time so the calves will only be about a month apart in age from the oldest to the youngest.


Since I'm in the South that can vary a bit as I wean in the late summer...and the weather ( temps) plays a part in mine.

I may wait a few weeks for the weather to cool off some times as weaning calves in 100F temps in a barn is NOT good!!

On this topic you will have a ton of different answers as many factors come into play, like how many calves are you weaning, what kind of facilities you have, are they gonna be sale barn calves, feed lot calves or private treaty sold calves....the list is long.
 

PureCountry

Well-known member
Soapweed said:
If we get a long-toed cow, she gets to stay long enough to have a calf. We then rob her calf to put on a good young cow that has lost a calf for one reason or another, and the long-toed cow gets a ride to town.

I agree Soap, but don't forget to send the young cow to town for losing her own calf, at the earliest opportunity that is. :wink:

As far as trimming feet, we never do. I've had some purchased cows with longer toes, but I believe it was their environment/feed that did it, and once they ran in our hills for the summer, they've never had a long toe since.
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
PureCountry said:
don't forget to send the young cow to town for losing her own calf, at the earliest opportunity that is. :wink:

My thought is that often it isn't the young cow's fault if her calf was born dead. For instance, if the rancher was foolish enough to turn the bulls out too early :roll: and a calf was born on a very cold night, it isn't the cow's fault if the calf freezes to death. If she is a good young cow, and I have a live calf out of an old shelly cow, it would seem to be wise to graft that calf onto the nice young cow. Even if a calf is born with the placenta over its nose and it smothers, it isn't necessarily the cow's fault. She could go another ten years with that never happening again.

A cow that has a super calf one year will not necessarily do so the next. A late calving cow won't necessarily have a late calf the next year.

It is just like parents bringing up children. Sometimes the parents do their best to see that the kids turn out alright, and yet a kid can grow up to be a renegade. Sometimes lousy parents have great children. The older I get, the more I realize that there are no completely hard and fast rules on either cows having calves or people having kids.
 

jkvikefan

Well-known member
Good point made by PureCountry. Exercise is the best foot trimmer there ever was . Give the cow a chance and trim her feet. If they grow back the way they were ... I agree, Ship her.
 

PureCountry

Well-known member
Soapweed said:
PureCountry said:
don't forget to send the young cow to town for losing her own calf, at the earliest opportunity that is. :wink:

My thought is that often it isn't the young cow's fault if her calf was born dead. For instance, if the rancher was foolish enough to turn the bulls out too early :roll: and a calf was born on a very cold night, it isn't the cow's fault if the calf freezes to death. If she is a good young cow, and I have a live calf out of an old shelly cow, it would seem to be wise to graft that calf onto the nice young cow. Even if a calf is born with the placenta over its nose and it smothers, it isn't necessarily the cow's fault. She could go another ten years with that never happening again.

A cow that has a super calf one year will not necessarily do so the next. A late calving cow won't necessarily have a late calf the next year.

It is just like parents bringing up children. Sometimes the parents do their best to see that the kids turn out alright, and yet a kid can grow up to be a renegade. Sometimes lousy parents have great children. The older I get, the more I realize that there are no completely hard and fast rules on either cows having calves or people having kids.

There is a huge rule that I see as being very hard and fast - cows cost money and pay the bills. Kids, well, they just cost. :lol: :lol:

I see your point about a cow calving in cold weather - not her fault, which is why we switched to June calving. Now our cows have no excuses. As far as a calf smothering, to me that's a cows' first instinct is to ensure the calf gets cleaned off. That instinct has been in grazing mammals for centuries, to clean off any smell before predators pick it up. If we've given them a chance, by allowing those cows to stay on, we're taking it another step towards knocking out their instincts.

I don't want to turn my cows into buffalo, but I want them to do the bulk of the work, without me watching all the time. As a wise Galloway breeder, and fine old gentleman cowboy, Fred Noad once told me, "The best tool I have at calving season is my binoculars." :wink:
 

Soapweed

Well-known member
PureCountry said:
Soapweed said:
PureCountry said:
don't forget to send the young cow to town for losing her own calf, at the earliest opportunity that is. :wink:

My thought is that often it isn't the young cow's fault if her calf was born dead. For instance, if the rancher was foolish enough to turn the bulls out too early :roll: and a calf was born on a very cold night, it isn't the cow's fault if the calf freezes to death. If she is a good young cow, and I have a live calf out of an old shelly cow, it would seem to be wise to graft that calf onto the nice young cow. Even if a calf is born with the placenta over its nose and it smothers, it isn't necessarily the cow's fault. She could go another ten years with that never happening again.

A cow that has a super calf one year will not necessarily do so the next. A late calving cow won't necessarily have a late calf the next year.

It is just like parents bringing up children. Sometimes the parents do their best to see that the kids turn out alright, and yet a kid can grow up to be a renegade. Sometimes lousy parents have great children. The older I get, the more I realize that there are no completely hard and fast rules on either cows having calves or people having kids.

There is a huge rule that I see as being very hard and fast - cows cost money and pay the bills. Kids, well, they just cost. :lol: :lol:

I see your point about a cow calving in cold weather - not her fault, which is why we switched to June calving. Now our cows have no excuses. As far as a calf smothering, to me that's a cows' first instinct is to ensure the calf gets cleaned off. That instinct has been in grazing mammals for centuries, to clean off any smell before predators pick it up. If we've given them a chance, by allowing those cows to stay on, we're taking it another step towards knocking out their instincts.

I don't want to turn my cows into buffalo, but I want them to do the bulk of the work, without me watching all the time. As a wise Galloway breeder, and fine old gentleman cowboy, Fred Noad once told me, "The best tool I have at calving season is my binoculars." :wink:

I'll bet if Fred was looking through his binoculars at a cow whose new calf was smothering, and she wasn't getting it licked off, I'll just bet he would make every attempt to drive by and scrape it off with a pitchfork. :wink:

I have seen cows get right up and go to licking on the wrong end of the calf. She is trying, but things aren't working out. A person sometimes takes their life in their hands to rectify the situation, but I think that is in the job description of a cowboy. :)
 

CattleArmy

Well-known member
Young cows here get a trip to town if they are kicking off their calf, don't milk, are fighty. If a young cow loses a calf it's a case by case situation. If it's due to part human error she's safe. However, us keeping them around also depends on our feed situation. If feed is short who can afford to keep anything not weening off a calf around? With the lack of rain the past few years it makes watching feed and consumption a lot bigger deal.


We don't trim hooves. Also cows with bad hooves go to town here because it makes travel difficult for them with the hard frozen ground. I know everyone's situation is different but the size of pastures here are very large where say when we visited Oregon this past summer many pastures there would not be a traveling issue for water and feed as they are like lots here. Not at all saying one is better then the other just saying what is an issue for one rancher is not for another.
 

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