Ram yearling feet look weird

[trampledbygeese]

Been reading in the Merricks manual about possible sheep lameness and one of the possibilities for founders symptoms is a chronic selenium toxicity.

Selenium here is very low and we have had major troubles with it before, lost a couple of sheep, one got better. So I use minerals that are high in selenium, and thankfully no one has gotten sick from selenium deficiency in almost a year. How would I test for this?

 

[SheepGirl]

Have your veterinarian come out and diagnose him.

 

[trampledbygeese]

Thanks for the advise. He's small enough I can take him to the vet and save a couple hundred dollars... okay, hundred and twenty, but there is tax on that.

I'm going to do one more check on his feet, and pester the sheerer to get his ahem out here, he was suppose to come yesterday or today, and rule out that I haven't been trimming them wrong. Very unlikely, but I need to confirm this before I go to the vet. We had to pull our well today, so... um...well... anything not to go to the vet before pay day. The rams are still showing an interest in the world, eating, walking, drinking, pooping and making little puddles, so it's thankfully chronic not acute problem. If they stop doing any of the above, then to the vet we go.

 

[trampledbygeese]

Feet are showing some signs of improvement, less swelling on the pads fleshy bits in the middle now.

The rams are obviously feeling better because they didn't fall for my usual tricks to corral them. Instead, it took three strong neighbours and myself to catch and flip them. I can't believe how strong they are, it's kind of terrifying and makes me almost wish I had polled them.

When I had a look at the feet, they are less swollen, but the nail bit is much harder to cut than before. About 1/4 to 1/2 inch more nail showing than less than two weeks ago. Which I think means the swelling went down, not the nail growing that fast. There are still some major tenderness on the parts of the feet near where it was swollen the most.

I trimmed them like my goat guru says to trim for founders, leaving the toe a bit longer, and the heals a bit shorter. (edit to add: She says this takes the pressure off the little bone in the foot pad so that the swelling goes down). Hopefully this will help some more. The only major changes I've made to the diet this week is adding free choice baking soda and putting signs up all around the pasture telling people not to feed them grain. If it's a normal case of founders then the baking soda will help, but if it's a mineral based toxicity causing founders, then the baking soda should actually make things worse... Am I right? Grain founders makes an acid stomach, mineral toxicity like Chronic Se. Toxicity makes an alkali?

The lesser ram still has weird shaped toes. I took a photo of the worst one.

This is about 3/4 way through trimming it. Like I said, I tried to focus on trimming the heal, but my clippers are the wrong shape to get it really short.

Questions:

1. Looking at the photo - am I doing something wrong with the trimming to make them walk with their ankles so twisted?
2. Do you see anything there that would cause the problem?
3. Is this in the range of normal feet shape?

Anyway, I don't know if there are any answers out there, but I thought I would post updates here for future readers incase they have similar problems.

 

[SillyChicken]

I like to use a rasp file and file the heal and nail parts flat.. And
When I trim I keep in mind to check where the hoof and flesh meet... keeping the hoof parallel to the top.

Hope you figure out what their issues are.

 

[trampledbygeese]

@SillyChicken What a wonderful post. Thank you for the photos. Very helpful.