THIS WEEK AT THE FARM – 10/14/15

Posted by on October 15, 2015 in Goats, On the farm

Once a quarter, the goats at “Wish We had Acres” are due for a bit of grooming. This week, I had the pleasure of helping Laura and Dr. Dave with hoof trimming. This simple procedure prevents hooves from overgrowth and hoof rot.

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Goats in the wild don’t need to get their hooves trimmed. They naturally file down their hooves by scaling cliffs and climbing around on rocks.

These domesticated goats live primarily on grassy terrain, so their hooves can get long and require a trim– much like human fingernails. The key is to trim the outer nail as much as possible, without clipping the soft, calloused pad in the middle of the hoof.

“Bluebell” is the goat on the left. “Meadow” is up on the stand.

One by one, we led the goats to the milking stand, where the goats were happy to dive their faces into a bucket of grain. The goats barely seemed to notice we were working on their feet. One goat, named “Bluebell” (pictured left), even fell asleep in Dr. Dave’s lap while we trimmed her hooves!

The whole process was rather simple but took about 3 hours to get through all 14 goats. The only difficulty was dealing with the stinky goat feet and mud that got trapped under the hooves. At the end of the day the goats were happy for the extra grain and TLC!

Next week at the farm – Stay tuned for pecan harvest and goat feeding!