Trimming Hooves of a Buck Right Now?

[Egg_Newton]

He is still too small for my stanchion so I have to hold him in my lap to trim his hooves. How do I do it without getting his stink all over me?

 

[ragdollcatlady]

Do it vicariously...through another person!

Good luck with that one. The only thing I could I could think of is to wrap him in a towel or blanket, but i would think you will still smell pretty volatile anytime you wear that particular shirt/pants again....That bucky cologne is really powerful stuff! I am needing to get out and do the same for my boys, but I just need to decide on a sacrificial outfit...maybe one I should keep just for taking care of the smelly boys.....

 

[Southern by choice]

You can take a lead and hook it to the fence so he doesn't have room to really move around andd then just lift and trim. If he is too small you can always lay him on his side and firmly but without "weight" hold him with your knee and trim away.

Sorry but you are going to get stink on you!

Sadly we are so use to buck smell now that we have become too lax... in other words we don't change our clothes after going in with them.

 

[ThornyRidgeII]

a pair of overalls to wear only for this chore. or if they are not tooo bad wait a bit longer in winter when he cleans up a bit. One thing I have done for my bucks and it works wonders is keeping a very rocky pen and a plank covered in roofing shingles that they have to walk up and down each time they leave the barn. Kinda like a big emory board.

 

[Rocco]

Lay him on his side legs pointing away from you, with you sitting on ground with your legs over him - one leg across his neck one across his mid-region. You can pull the leg towards you to trim the hoof.

To avoid the wunnerfulness of buck, put an old towel or something like that over him first.

 

[animalmom]

I trim my bucks hooves the evening before I do laundry. The smelly pants don't hang around long enough to do any whiff damage. I've not smelled any bucky-ness after the pants were washed. Borax is a god-send around my house.

I can get my bucks on the milking stand, but I can't close the head lock on their thick necks, so I use two leads and hook them up to a very substantial fence so they can't move their heads (much) and just shift them from one side to the other and grab a hoof.

They don't seem to mind terribly since they get the great gift of a couple raisins. Raisins make anything unpleasant, to them, forgotten.

 

[Egg_Newton]

Thankfully, he has grown just enough that he fits now. I have to bring the feed tray up for him to reach his snack while I trim and he is still young that he's not super stinky just yet. It went much better than I had planned!