Sore front feet

[Anonymous]

Hi there We are emailing you from Queensland, Australia. We have a Mini Galloway cow that has slight deformity in both claws of her front feet. She shows similar symtoms to a horse with the early stages of laminitis. Outside exterior wall of hoof shows small horizontal ridging, not uniform in size or length. Her history: show cow, high grain diet for the first 4-5 yrs of her life with natural pasture dry to sparse, winters extremely cold & snow (New South Wales); then moved to a semi tropical region of coastal Queensland, subsidised grain feeding for the 1st year, since then on natural pasture that is relatively low in fibre content mid range nutrion plus grassy lucerne hay sandwiches. She has carried 3 calves to term, birth normal, healthy, no problems. The sore feet are getting progressively worse and she tends to lay down more than the rest of the herd, however she does maintain her condition. We look forward to your reply.

[email protected]

 

[Anonymous]

It sounds like founder which I think is the same thing as laminitis. We see a case or two every year on the cattle that are in the feed yard and on a very high grain ration. So far I have only seen it in one of the cows though, and that was about 5-6 years ago. I let her raise her calf in the barn so she didn't have to walk around so much, the shipped her after weaning. I don't think there is a cure for it, but could be wrong.