One of the main problems I see a lot of is feet. It takes special equipment or effort to be able to work on cattle’s feet. To work on feet it either takes a tip chute, ropes and lots of arm power or drugs. Personally, I don’t like the drugs, they are closer to death. This leaves ropes or the tip chute. I prefer the tip chute.
To understand feet you have to know the normal anatomy and how a cow should stand. They are actually walking on what would be our third and fourth fingertips or our third and fourth toe tips. The second and fifth, toe or fingers are the dewclaws. They, of course, do not have an opposing thumb. They do have most all the bones in their feet that we have.
From the tip of the hoof, going up they have a coffin bone, then the second pastern bone, then the first pastern bone and then the fetlock. Most of us refer to this as the ankle. This ankle is actually the joint where our fingers or toes attach to our hand or foot. Normal posture for cattle is like a ballerinas or doing finger tip push ups.
The toe or hoof is divided into different parts, the hoof wall, the sole, the toe and heel. When a cow puts her foot down, the outside of the hoof wall should hit at the same time with both digits. The heel should hit at the same time as the toe. We consider this walking flat footed. The arch in the sole, in the middle, almost never touches the ground unless it is soft footing. The hoof wall is the strongest part of the hoof and with it hitting the ground all the time we have the proper forces going up the bony column or leg. When forces are applied properly, support and force is distributed properly throughout the leg and into the back. We will also have the proper wear and tear to the hoof wall to maintain this action.
Now, we can start looking at some different problems with feet. The first and most common is foot rot. This is a bacterial disease caused by Fusobacterium Necropherum, bacteria that lives in wet and soggy areas. It infects the hoof of cattle and causes cell death, generally in between the claw on the underside. There is a very foul smell and generally a crack or wound between the toes. I have heard of people using everything from bleach to diesel to treat foot rot. Generally, I like iodine on the foot and either penicillin at 5 ml per 100 pounds in the muscle for 3-5 days or LA 200 at 5 ml per 100 pounds once to treat this. With dairy animals I use Excenel at 1-2 ml per 100 pounds under the skin for 2-3 days, (this is because of the milk out on the other medicines). Excenel does not have a milk out if used at this dose. I have used Excenel on beef cattle for foot rot with extreme cases and normally, they will be back to normal gait within 48-72 hrs. Other foot problems will be covered in the next edition.
Dr. Tim O'Neill owns Country Veterinary Clinic in Farmington, Ark.
