# Bow Legged goats and hoof trimming



## waygr00vy (Aug 7, 2005)

I posted a while back about a couple of my younger goats becoming bow legged. Since then I have been giving them alfalfa as well as a free choice mineral and I guess things are going ok, but the two that are bowlegged I guess will always be that way. The problem is...because they are not putting even pressure on their front hooves, the hoofs are growing very abnormally and reshaping. I don't have to trim my goats very often because they usually wear down enough but these guys hooves definitely need some attention. Has anyone had this problem before? Is there anything I can do or a certain way to trim them where it will keep this problem from getting worse? They get around fine now but if they continue to wear there hooves the way they are I am afraid they will go lame. Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!!


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## Goat Freak (Jul 6, 2005)

We have one boer cross doeling that has some FUNKY hooves, they get SO BAD that one time I actually had to reshape her hoof, it was ALL over the place because of the growth and I ended up cutting a LOT of stuff off, she was having problems walking so I had to do it. Now she is ding fine, although I still have to trim her hooves more often the rest of the goats. All that I have to say is that if you have to reshape their hooves try to think what a nromal trimmed hoof would look like, but don't cut too much off at a time just in case they have blood vessels that far out, which they shouldn't. Good Luck


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## Misty (May 29, 2005)

I cull for that. If they have hooves that grow out of control, they go to the sale barn. I won't keep kids out of them except for market wethers. Because they are trimmed all the time.
You can correct a lot of problems with trimming.


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## chamoisee (May 15, 2005)

The hooves are growing that way because of the way the goats stand. The richer the feed, the faster the hooves will grow- like fingernails. As for corrective hoof trimming, it can be done; just trim the inner half of the hoof shorter than the outer side (they are bow legged, right?).

Are these two animals related? The bowleggedness sounds like a defect that shouldn't be perpetuated. The exception is when a doe has been bred way too young and fed inadequately, so that under the strain of pregnancy+growing, she has inadequate calcium and her bones don't grow straight. It isn't her fault, it's the breeder's, but she won't improve.


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## goatkid (Nov 20, 2005)

A friend of mine had a bow legged kid because the mother didn't produce adequate milk for her kids as they grew and the smallest kid didn't grow right. The goats also had worms amd lice. The goat is doing better since she was wormed and dusted. I make sure my babies get enough milk and also grain pellets along with their alfalfa hay. My champion doe needs lots of work to keep her hooves up. I think I probably didn't trim them right when she was a baby. She was one of my first goats. Then she didn't get bred one year and got fat and started to go down on her pasterns. We got her up, but the feet still turn out and I have to trim and file them at least monthly. We'll have to see how her daughter's feet turn out as she grows to see if it is genetic. So far, she looks fine.


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## waygr00vy (Aug 7, 2005)

One of the goats I got at a few months old and she was not bowlegged at all at that time. The other was born out of one of my does and was born fine and began to get bowlegged at a couple of months. Neither parents were bowlegged and they are not related goats, this happened during the same time period, however, and several people told me it sounded like Ricketts. I do not believe it is anything genetic but a defficiency thing so I have changed their feed, give them more alfalfa, and a different mineral supplement. I haven't had this problem before with any of my kids so it is frusterating, but I think they are doing better now. The only other thing they were doing different during those months was they were cleaning up after the cows and the cows had been switched to a different feed. I'm not sure if that may have thrown something out of balance or what. I will trying correcting it some with the trimming and see if that helps as well. Thanks!


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