Life On the Family Farm Under an Open Heaven: Small Things - Big Problems

Written By: Tom Heck  |  Posted: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011

                We had a very puzzling situation happen here on our farm early this summer.  It took us a while to figure out what was really happening.  We had a cow, Lydia, get lame on one of her legs.  So we lifted her leg up so that we could look at her hoof.  Just like people's toenails need trimming once in a while, so do cow's feet-or hooves.  We trimmed her hoof a little, but it actually looked really good.  So we were puzzled as to why she was so lame on that leg.  A few days later though, her ankle swelled up really big.  Somehow she had sprained it quite severely.  At the time, all we could figure out was that she must have misstepped and hurt it.  But we had no idea how.

                Very shortly thereafter, one of our biggest cows came into the barn with a hurt leg.  Again, we lifted up her leg and looked at her hoof.  It was perfectly fine.  Within a few days, her leg swelled up too.  Over the next several weeks we had a few more cows get sprained ankles or swollen up legs.  We were baffled by this and greatly concerned about it. 

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