Tuesday 25th July 2017
Feet trimming!!
Today we had Charlie the foot trimmer here to trim the cows’ feet! This is a job that generally needs doing just once a year and a little like alpaca shearing; it is not a task that the cows find comfortable. There is no pain in the procedure – it is just the same as trimming our own toe nails, i.e. removing dead nail – but in order for it to be done, the cow has to be hoisted on her side and her feet secured in straps to keep them still...
It took longer to set everything up and get the cows in position than it did for Charlie to do the actual trimming. The first task was to move the cows into the Collecting Area: that was easy as the fresh grass proved hard to resist. After that we had to get them onto the Woodchip Pad, into the race and then through our crush straight into Charlie’s (neatly maneuvered into place earlier)! Not quite so easy but all went well. Charlie’s crush was an amazing contraption that positioned straps under each cow and then lifted them up and over. It wasn’t great to watch, the whites of the cows’ eyes showed their alarm, but fortunately the nail trimming itself took no longer than five minutes, after which they were gently lowered back to a standing position and let back out.
We only needed to do the three cows: Parsley, Sage and Thyme, as a quick check of the two older steers showed their feet to be fine. None of the cows’ feet were actually that bad, some edges were a bit split and the toes had all overgrown a little (a Dexter trait apparently) but once trimmed, all feet were fine, with no deformities or infections or anything untoward!
In order to say 'sorry’ for putting them through such an undignified procedure, we opened up the gate to the bottom three-acre field where there is some quite nice long grass (having restricted the sheep and alpacas to the top, where there is still oodles of grass for them too..). As is usual, and as the photo shows, they all had a jolly good run, exploring each field corner and all the edges before settling down to munch!!!
We left them to it with their forgiveness settling happily in our ears!!
We only needed to do the three cows: Parsley, Sage and Thyme, as a quick check of the two older steers showed their feet to be fine. None of the cows’ feet were actually that bad, some edges were a bit split and the toes had all overgrown a little (a Dexter trait apparently) but once trimmed, all feet were fine, with no deformities or infections or anything untoward!
In order to say 'sorry’ for putting them through such an undignified procedure, we opened up the gate to the bottom three-acre field where there is some quite nice long grass (having restricted the sheep and alpacas to the top, where there is still oodles of grass for them too..). As is usual, and as the photo shows, they all had a jolly good run, exploring each field corner and all the edges before settling down to munch!!!
We left them to it with their forgiveness settling happily in our ears!!