Hoof rot

[DocM]

My farm (and my entire town) flooded about two weeks ago. There really isn't anywhere totally dry (we rebedded the entire barn last night, but it's still pretty wet in there, had 3' of water in it). We JUST had some dry straw delivered yesterday, so the poor goats have been confined at night to the only semi dry place I have, the sand-based horse arena - certainly not the best footing for goats. The ground is wet, the pastures are wet, the goats have to cross a creek to get to browse. The paddocks are wet, everything is wet. Now I have two limpers and the smelling beginnings of foot rot, confined to just the two goats and one foot each. I have naylors, I have koppertox, but I have never actually treated hoof rot in a goat (just the sheep) and I want this killed now and gone. What's the best course of treatment? It's confined up between the toes, no sign of it in the bottom of the foot in either goat. They are separated and in individual pens, finally on dry bedding, where they're still quarantined because I'm trying hard to keep their infected feet dry. Help. I don't have time for this, I have town to help rebuild. Should I use an antibiotic? How about the rest of the girls? Getting RX meds might be a problem too, can fax an RX to jeffers if I can find the vet, his office had 4' of water in it and was completely ruined, their mobile clinic (motorhome) was destroyed too. I don't need rampant foot rot on top of everything else.

[topside1]

Doc, I feel your pain. Well, at least last year I did....Coppertox worked miracles for me. I'd put the goat on the milk stand or somewhere secure. Using a toothbrush I'd scrub the area between the toes with a warm water mixed with a small about of bleach. Once scrubbed the effected area will be obvious visiable. When reasonably dried (moist) I would apply liberial amounts of Coppertox. Let goat loose after five minutes of waiting (drying time). Did this twice a day for two days and the rot disappeared completely. I did buy copper sulfate power just to used after my Coppertox bottle is empty. I will try the sulfate power next time due to the price tag of Coppertox. Bleach water mixture and Coppertox sure worked for me...Good luck

[fishhead]

Can you just walk them through some water with dissolved copper sulfate? It's pretty toxic to bacteria.

[hoofinitnorth]

Durasole is a newer med that some people LOVE for horses. Haven't used it myself for anything, though.

If you're dealing with anaerobic bacteria, the best thing to do is get air to it and that will help kill it. Keep them dry too, of course. The cheapest thing we do for horses (and I can't imagine that you couldn't use it for goats too) is to mix bleach into water and spray it on a few times a day, flushing and cleaning the infected area. I am not sure if diluted vinegar would do the same but I bet it would. Avoid getting the mixture on the skin and you should be fine.

Good luck.

[topside1]

Whenever I get around to using sulfate I will mix it with water and create a runny paste and apply with a paint brush or whatever. My goats really don't like walking through water so that could be a problem. Also I envision a tray of any liquid flipped repeatedly throughout the day....Guess you could screw a tray down to a wooden frame. If anything can be broken my goats will find a way.

[DocM]

Right now I really don't have anywhere to set up a foot bath - they're really only effective if you can get the animal to stand in it for a few seconds, and we all know how likely it is to get a goat to stand in liquid. I have a race I use for the sheep, but that's where I'm keeping the poor sheep. I have a brand new bottle of coppertox, I'll just put the two girls on the milk stand and let them stand there for awhile until it soaks in/foot is dry. Honestly, everywhere is saturated, and it's raining (but not 12" in 24 hours). I will wash the milkstand down with bleach water - I haven't done that yet. Would it be preventative to just dose every goat's foot with coppertox for a day or two? It's what I have, there's little chance of getting anything else - at least for the next week or so. Thanks everyone. I'm frazzled.

[wendle]

Hoof Phast , you can get it through midwest sheep supply

[steff bugielski]

All good info but if the pasture and barn are still wet and infected the problem will not go away. When it drys out you can remove them from the infected pasture for 3 weeks and treat the hooves. But they must be on clean dry uninfected ground for those 3 weeks.

[JR05]

We went through the same thing last year. Tried kopertox, hoof n heel, bleach water, just about every thing the local stores sold. Found in Hoegger's book a recipe for foot scald/rot: "1 pint rubbing alcohol, 2 tble 343 Terramycin powder. Mix 2 tble of terramycin powder with 1 pt of alcohol. Pour into a spray bottle and apply liberally to affected areas between toes. This topical treatment may be enhanced by giving a 4cc injection of Biomycin.The alcohol and terramycin solution will chang color after a few days ,but it's still okay to use." This was the only thing that worked for us. The "boys" stay with the cows in one side of the barn and this causes problems every winter due to wet and cow poo. In Missouri we get more wet then snow normally so have these ingredents on hand already to tackle any signs before they get as bad as they did last year. Good Luck.

jr05

[DocM]

Originally Posted by JR05

We went through the same thing last year. Tried kopertox, hoof n heel, bleach water, just about every thing the local stores sold. Found in Hoegger's book a recipe for foot scald/rot: "1 pint rubbing alcohol, 2 tble 343 Terramycin powder. Mix 2 tble of terramycin powder with 1 pt of alcohol. Pour into a spray bottle and apply liberally to affected areas between toes. This topical treatment may be enhanced by giving a 4cc injection of Biomycin.The alcohol and terramycin solution will chang color after a few days ,but it's still okay to use." This was the only thing that worked for us. The "boys" stay with the cows in one side of the barn and this causes problems every winter due to wet and cow poo. In Missouri we get more wet then snow normally so have these ingredents on hand already to tackle any signs before they get as bad as they did last year. Good Luck.

jr05

I have all that stuff. When you say injection, is that regular sq? I've heard of people injecting antibiotic right into the site of the infection. And I wish I had somewhere dry to put them, but I don't think there's a dry place in my entire county. The horse arena is pretty dry, since its covered, but it has a sand floor.

[Laura Workman]

Originally Posted by DocM

Right now I really don't have anywhere to set up a foot bath - they're really only effective if you can get the animal to stand in it for a few seconds, and we all know how likely it is to get a goat to stand in liquid.

If you ever do want to footbath a goat, put it on the milkstand, and put the bath solution into a small bucket or Tupperware container. Pick up foot, place bucket where foot was, lower and hold foot for a few seconds, raise foot, remove bucket. Repeat for other feet. Time consuming, but not very hard. Good luck on your rebuilding. The rain and floods have been so hard on people this year.

[Jcran]

Premier catalog had a zinc sulfate solution that is concentrated...its the same ingredient as in HoofnHeel. I use it at a slightly higher concentration as we are always wet in the winter here, and I like the results. One way I foot bath is to soak the solution on a sponge cut to fit the bottom of the bucket-stick foot on spongy material...doesn't freak them out as much and the spill isn't so bad if they do kick over the container.

[JR05]

Yes injection regular sq. I also have the premier stuff didn't work and was very expensive.
jr05

[goatkid]

In haven't had to deal with foot rot, but just want to say it seems you are one of the lucky ones. My friend knows folks in Washington and Oregon and said many farmers lost cows or goats in the flooding. I guess whole dairies got wiped out. I'm glad your goats survived.

[DocM]

People on both sides of me lost livestock. The first thing I did when the river started rising was move my vehicles to high ground. Then I made sure my kids could get to them. Then we moved the livestock as we could, problem is, animals know when the water is rising and have their own idea of where they want to go - not always the direction you're hoping to herd them. My pasture is low, my house is on the highest point, but that meant moving the animals towards the river, something they absolutely didn't want to do. If not for the dogs, we would have lost our sheep - for once they worked together and moved the flock as I asked them to, not as they usually do, with a "whatever" attitude. The goats happily came when called. The sheep looked at us as if we were holding butchering tools. Stupid animals.

[YuccaFlatsRanch]

My goats and sheep are vaccinated with FOOTVAX against the bacteria that cause footrot. Sure does help.

[DocM]

Is FOOTVAX something I can order online, or is it RX only?

[vicb66]

Try pallets on the floor.If they can get up and dry their feet out for any amount of time you will be better off.Also the spray bottle of bleach is a God send.Put your goats on the milk stand and just pick the smelly stuff out of the goats hoofs.Trim them nice and short and spray away.This is the samething as thrush in horses. Just pick them out and spray them down with the bleach.

[smpooh1]

I know this may sound silly but a good way to soak feet in livestock is to cut an intertube (sized for the foot - goat, cow, horse) and tie off one end. Use bailing twine, duct tape, or what ever you have that will work. Cut the length of tube you will need, add solution, insert foot and part of leg and hold at the top with your hands around the leg. Much easier than keeping a bucket upright for most animals.

Take care and hope all goes well.

[mamajohnson]

Doc,
I have no advice, just wanted to say I am glad that your animals all made it. I was wondering if anyone up that way was having troubles.
Nice to know your dogs worked for you when you needed them to. Don't know if my dogs would. Wish I could come help ya'll rebuild, but that wouldn't be possible right now.
My heart and prayers are with all of you up there. Hang in there.
Mama J