Foot bath

[mystang89]

I sorry for another post.

Those of you who do foot baths for your sheep can you tell me how your process is? I've seen YouTube vids of people with many sheep and they just have their sheep walk through and straight to the pen.

I was thinking of getting https://www.premier1supplies.com/p/...NOjTyTCaISmOMKCJEtDe9apmf1yjJRexoC1nYQAvD_BwE
which says it takes 10 min exposure. How do they just walk through it and magically everything is OK?

What do you all use and how do you do it? I was thinking of something similar by just having a foot bath they have to walk through on their way out and back in at night.

Thoughts?

 

[Mike CHS]

When we decided to get sheep we accumulated so much info that it got to the point we didn't know what we had. The link I'm pasting is one that was pretty good at basic treatment with some good pointers. I haven't had a reason to use it yet but it seemed to cover what we wanted at the time.

http://extension.psu.edu/courses/sheep/health/foot-rot/treatment

It covers individual and larger numbers but not knowing what kind of facilities you have I can't answer the best way for you to handle your sheep. We have the luxury of a chute system where we can put a galvanized tub at the end before letting them out and they have no choice but to stand there for as long as we want.

 

[mystang89]

Thank you for the link. That had some useful information in it!
I was asking through videos and this is the one I was wondering how it actually had any effect.

How often do you give yours a foot bath?

 

[Mike CHS]

I'm not much help here. We have the equipment but so far we haven't had any reason to use it. We keep our flock on dry ground and so far they haven't had any problems.

 

[mysunwolf]

We have had a lot of problems but haven't figured out a good system for footbaths yet. I'm going to have to this year, though. We use zinc sulfate as a spray on their feet after we trim, this helps keep the hoof harder. This year are hooves are soft as butter and it's a nightmare.

As to your questions, I think the "quickly walk through" method is for prevention, and the "10 minute soak" is for treatment.

 

[Farmer Connie]

Thank you for the link. That had some useful information in it!
I was asking through videos and this is the one I was wondering how it actually had any effect.

How often do you give yours a foot bath?

Not sure it was long enough of a wash to be effective

 

[mysunwolf]

Not sure it was long enough of a wash to be effective

This is definitely effective and is how most foot baths are done. It can help control the spread of foot rot in flocks by running the "clean" sheep through this, as well as helps with foot scald. However, it will not treat active cases of foot rot, that requires a longer soak, preferably in addition to antibiotic therapy. Trust me, I know all too much about these bacteria.

 

[mystang89]

Thanks. Do you run them through a quick bath with zinc sulfate or something else? I know there are 3 different chemicals used.

 

[mysunwolf]

Yes, we use zinc sulfate in a (very) quick bath. We've only ever tried copper sulfate as an alternative, but it doesn't seem to work as well. Have not tried the formalin.