Category: Blog

Over the last 5 years, we’ve hauled a lot of rock out from various areas of the yard.

This weekend, we decided to recycle that rock into a jungle gym of sorts for the sheep.

Thought I don’t have any photographic evidence of the guys at play, they seem to really dig it. I think they like to be up on things. Must make them feel taller 🙂

Hoof observation and treatment continues, and I’m inquiring about soil and forage testing through Univ of Idaho.

Everyone seems to still be getting around without difficulty, and morale is high, so at least it doesn’t seem to be impacting their quality of life- but it does worry me and I really hope to get to the bottom of it.

I’m beginning to think that perhaps there’s something problematic in the sheep ration/alfalfa pellets that I have been giving them as treats- because Griff’s feet look the best of anyone’s, and he’s the one I’ve had the least interaction with the whole time they’ve been here! Thing is, I don’t have the bags for either product any more, and I haven’t had any sucess digging up content info for them online.
So, for now, I’ve discontinued the treats. Just hay, pasture (which of course isn’t growing much now) and mineral. So at least I’ll know exactly what the inputs are.

No sweater progress to speak of this week,, but I am still spinning down the stash-

Thinking of something vaguely Cowichan-ish for The Man.

Have a good week!

Denise

So is Felix.

He got to be the first to try out our new sheep deck chair today.

The Man built it from used T-posts, an old Navy mesh laundry bag, and a bunch of zip ties.
(such a clever guy!)
It worked out pretty well, except we probably need to make the seat a little deeper.
Couple of those sheepers have bigger tushes than we approximated.

Think it’s going to make keeping a close eye on those hooves a little easier.

And here are some of the boys coming back after their turn in the sling to take a closer look-

Many of the hooves are still separated. Some look a little better, others don’t appear to have changed at all.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and it looks to me that what we’ve got going on can best be described as “Shelly Toe”.

Thing is,,there isn’t really any conclusive info on what causes it. Seems most often people say its a result of neglecting the hooves.
That keeping them trimmed them up solves the problem. But these guys don’t have overgrown, unkempt hooves. And they’re only 5-6 months old. Some people say that it’s somewhat hereditary. But I don’t think that any of their parents had this problem.

I think it must be something (or lack of something) in the environment that must be causing it.
So, I’m looking into getting our soil and forage tested.

Maybe once we have a better idea of what all the inputs are, we can develop a game plan.

In brighter news-

I’ve got about 70-75% of a sweater

And managed to get some spinning done this week as well-

Left to right: Shetland/alpaca, mystery wool, and random leftovers drum-carded into submission.

Ok, so I got a couple pictures of Chone’s hoof. Sorry about the blur, but I think you can still see what’s going on:

Here is from the side. Gives you the best view of the separation, I think

And here is is more from the front- I’m separating the toes some a little so you can see the cleft area better.

And here is a scan of the tag from the sheep mineral:

The tag was bisected by the cord that stitched the bag shut, so you might not be able to make out the Manganese content- it’s 1,700 ppm.

Thoughts?

Edited to add: The hoof photos were taken today, after we’d applied the copper solution yesterday afternoon. So they’ve already hardened up some

The other day I got a good look at Chone’s back hooves, and realized that the boys probably needed to be trimmed up a bit.

So yesterday The Man and I went out there and rounded up the guys (except Griff, he’s still being a bit of a bugger) and did some hoof trimming.

What we found was that a fair number of the hooves have a problem with separation of the hard external covering and the sole underneath. Also seemed like the hooves were kind of softer than I would have expected, seeing as how we’re not even into our wet season yet.
They don’t look infected (not hot, swollen or smelly), but there was dirt and debris getting stuck in that crevice, and I know that can’t be good.

I suppose if would have helped if I’d taken some pictures of the hooves,, but we kinda had our hands full, being new to this whole thing 🙂

After doing some reading and going back to our farm store, we decided to use a copper naphthenate product applied with a sponge brush to the hooves. Guess we’ll be doing that every day or so for a while and see how it goes.

The thing is, I can’t help but wonder if there is some sort of trace mineral or element that they are missing that they need for health hoof development. I know that the mineral issue is kind of regionally complicated by soil composition and all.

I read this blog today by someone who lives a down near Seattle. She attributes her sheep’s recovered hoof health at least in part to switching to a goat mineral product that contains some copper. I’ve also heard that zinc is really important to hoof development. Perhaps my guys are not getting enough?

They currently have a free choice loose sheep mineral that I know they consume with regularity. Pretty sure it’s the Wilbur Ellis Range Country sheep mineral. I picked that one because it had more selenium in it that the other that was available locally, and I’d heard that our soil is generally selenium deficient.

Nobody is limping or showing signs of discomfort, but I really want to make sure that their hooves are in good shape going into the winter.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions.

Denise