The things you find when trimming feet

[firesweepranch]

So, we had the trimmer out today for the show string and a few problem cows. Some of you might remember the heifer we had last fall that aborted 4 weeks early just days after getting vaccinated, and then came up lame. The vet thought she might have foundered, and we treated her. Well, fast forward to today. Her toes grew REALLY fast on the rear, crossing over each other in the rear with one foot being worse than the other. She was only lame for about a month, and then was fine. We put her on the table today to get her long toes trimmed (mind you, she is just 2 1/2 years old), and the trimmer told me we are lucky she survived! She is about ready to sluff off the rest of her foot, but when he started trimming her toe that was super long, it was all black necrotic tissue underneath, kind of like when you smash your fingernail and it gets black and then eventually falls off. That is what happened. He said in all his years of trimming, he has never seen something this bad on a cow, and have her completely sound! Anyway, here is a picture of her trimmed up toe, and she walked away completely sound when he was done. He said he was very close to her bone, and was just surprised as heck that she was fine. Go figure!

 

[Till-Hill]

Felt bad for my old herf cow that been hobbling around all last year and trimmed her this spring. Had piece barb wire around a toe! She don't have bad feet after all!

 

[farmboy]

Felt bad for my old herf cow that been hobbling around all last year and trimmed her this spring. Had piece barb wire around a toe! She don't have bad feet after all!

How do you miss that?

 

[showsteerdlux]

Firesweep, any idea what caused this necrosis?

 

[Till-Hill]

Felt bad for my old herf cow that been hobbling around all last year and trimmed her this spring. Had piece barb wire around a toe! She don't have bad feet after all!

How do you miss that?

She had been hobbling around last two winters more so just when ground was froze and hard and seemed better when it was soft and nice. Wire was into the hoof and couldn't see it after it had grown over. All better now tho.

 

[firesweepranch]

Firesweep, any idea what caused this necrosis?

Trimmer guessed something metabolic like founder. He said the only thing that saved her was our early intervention with antibiotics. He noted that metabolic issues with feet manifest itself in the hoof growth, versus trauma like rocks or poor structure results in tissue damage, like abscess and ulcers in the feet. She has a ring of new growth in the upper two inches of the foot, near her hair line. You can clearly see the ring around her foot, on both, when the metabolic issue occurred. Above that line is healthy growth, below that line is the growth durning her lameness. Makes sense.