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Hoof Care (Prepared by VET Helpline India team ) Content Support: FAO & Late Prof. G. N. Dutta, Assam Agricultural University.
Why is hoof care important? Without care, the hooves of your cow become too big. They are painful when the cow is standing or walking. This reduces milk yield. If you do not care for overgrown hooves, your cow may get serious diseases in hooves and legs. She can become very sick and even die.

How can you care for hooves? By asking a skilled hoof trimmer to examine and trim the hooves of your cows at least twice a year. Consult your Veterinarian or Animal Health worker of your locality. Take help of a person who is experienced in hoof trimming! Wrong hoof trimming can damage the hoof more than no trimming.

What diseases come from poor hoof care? Ulcers on the sole. An ulcer is a hole in the horn of the sole. You can see the soft tissue under the horn. The hoof easily becomes infected and your cow becomes sick. If the ulcer is not too deep, the hoof trimmer can clean and trim the hoof. If the ulcer is deep and you can see the soft tissue, call the vet and let him treat the wound with antibiotics.


Note following Points: In a normal hoof a layer of horn covers the hoof and this grows all the time. Under the horn is soft tissue with many blood vessels. The horn protects the soft tissue. In a normal hoof, the horn is not too thick. If you walk on your heels, you do not feel comfortable. This is also true for a cow with overgrown hooves. Overgrown hooves are painful when the cow stands or walks. To avoid pain the cow lies down more than usual. So she easily gets wounds especially on the hock and knee. The cow easily stumbles and falls. She often damages her hooves and legs. Not everyone can trim hooves. Improper hoof trimming can make your cow lame. An experienced hoof trimmer examines the hoof carefully for pain and disease. He uses various instruments. To prevent disease, do not let your cows walk on roads with sharp stones, nails, and other things that may go through the hoof sole. One type of bacteria can infect the soft tissue between the claws and abscesses develop. This is called Cattle Foot Rot. This bacterium likes wet surroundings. So you often find the disease in the wet season. However, you may find the disease all through the year, especially when your cows walk around in mud and wet manure.

Preventive Measures: Preventive measures for foot diseases and foot rot should be regularly practiced. Muddy areas in pastures and yards should be drained and walkways cleared of sharp objects. All metal and other foreign objects must be kept away from areas where the animals may walk. When out break of foot rot threatens, the animals should be treated at least weekly by walking them through a footbath containing 5 to 10 percent copper sulphate or 5% formalin solution. The efficiency of the treatment will be enhanced if the floor of the footbath contains longitudinal ridges. This will tend to spread the hooves as the animals walk through, thus ensuring the treatment reaches all parts of the foot. If footbath is not available, walking the animals through a dry 1: 20 mixture of copper sulphate and slaked lime each day may be effective. Hooves of indigenous animals are stronger than those of the pure exotic cross breds. Lameness in dairy animals, besides many other reasons, depends upon how long the hooves were wet. Uneven or rough flooring, deficiency of certain micro-minerals, heavy feeding and genetic factor are other causes of lameness.