Saturday May 10th, 2025 was a busy day. I worked on all the sheep along with two of my kids, my wife, and two neighbors who wanted to help.
I used the chute to process the sheep. It made it so much easier to catch and process each sheep. I think next time I will process the sheep in the chute, and let them out when I am done. That may be even easier.
I didn’t spend any time looking at the FAMACHA score. One, I am not trained, and two, I don’t care. If they are high or low, it doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t treat for parasites, I don’t administer antibiotics, so if they are sick they are sick.
I inspected each hoof, looking carefully for signs of hoof rot or hoof scald. I also checked for long hooves, and trimmed the ones that were getting out of control.
Hoof scald is evidenced by irritation between the toes. The skin will appear white or infected or wet. Sometimes it can bleed and in the worst cases there will be maggots eating necrotic tissue. Treatment is simply spraying with a 10% solution of copper sulfate. More serious cases were treated with a cotton ball between the toes (I was low on gauze) and wrapping the foot.
Hoof rot is evidenced by rough or infested hooves. Treatment is to trim the hoof back, spraying with alcohol (if there are maggots present) and then spraying with the 10% copper sulfate solution. Serious cases were further treated with Hoofcure, gauze, and foot wrap.
I have had good success with copper sulfate in the past. I trust it will do its job, but I plan on inspecting the sheep again in 2 weeks on May 24th.
In terms of disease, half the sheep had perfect hooves. Those who had issues only had issues with one or two feet. There were less than 10% that had serious issues. Most issues were very minor. I erred on the side of caution, so if I felt the skin between the toes was a little too white, I would spray it and call it hoof scald.
My treatment for hoof rot / hoof scald is rotational grazing and eventually, culling. Right now I would rather have sick animals than fewer animals, but next year when I get up to my goal of 300 sheep, I will start aggressively culling the animals.