With all of the rain that we've had my lamb has sore feet, I believe it is hoof rot. Can I take care of it at home or do I need to call a vet. I have tried washing his feet with some betadine. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? My adult sheep are fine.

-- Shirley A Wikstrom (wikstrom5@skamania.net), May 27, 2000

Answers

I don't know about sheep, but we have a horse that will sometimes show signs of foot rot and we put bleach and water on the hoof. I don't know if it will work for sheep, though.

-- Abigail F. (treeoflife@sws.nb.ca), May 27, 2000.

Shirley, sore feet or lame? Did he get a tetnaus shot? Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), May 27, 2000.

If it is hoofrot, it will be moist and quite smelly. Is it one hoof or all four. This is what we do. I trim hoof back as far as possible. Than I soak affected hooves in zinc sulfate solution, a brand name in small quantities is Dr. Naylors Hoof Treatment, comes in pint bottles. For just one animal put some gauze around hoof, pour on the solution, cover with a plastic sandwich bag, and wrap (not overly tight) with vetwrap. After a few days the dressing will fall off but the hoof will have soaked enough. The second thing is to give a shot of LA200, long acting tetracycline. This only is given once every three days and under the skin (subquetaneous) as it can irritate tissue. I found the combination of the dressing plus the antibiotic cleared up all the footrot we ever had. By the way, it is my understanding that footrot is brought in on an infected animal, not just picked up from wet ground. Other treatments I have heard of were using a chlorox solution. Hope this helps.

-- Kate Henderson (sheeplady@catskill.net), June 03, 2000.

Our sheep stand around on wet ground half the year out here in Washington. We brought in 158 tons of gravel to put around our two barns (plus built a road to one of them) to help mitigate the problem. We sometimes have a sheep that gets a limp and upon investigation find that there may be space between the soft part of the hoof and the hard outer part, which looks like footrot but isn't. Sometimes there's dirt wedged in the crack. We trim the hard part back, wash it out well, quirt some triple antibiotic cream onto the hoof, wrap in gauze, and finish it off with a neat little duct tape boot. By the time the duct tape boot comes off, there's no limp and no problem. Foot rot is caused by bacteria that can live on the ground and isn't related to just wet feet. Good luck with your lamb.

-- sheepish (rborgo@gte.net), June 03, 2000.

When this becomes a problem here we take a big old baking sheet pan we got from the dumpster behind the bakery in town & make a 10% bleach solution & place the pan at the intrance to the goat shed so they have no option but to step in it going in & out. Seems to clear them up pretty fast

-- Okie-Dokie (www.tommycflinstone@aol.com), June 03, 2000.