I finished trimming toes on at least half of the adult ewes today. The sheep have better feet this year compared to other years. We’ve been culling for poor hoof growth patterns for a while, but not very heavily. It seems to have made a big difference this year.
Our next batch to do is the adult rams. Then, we’ll have to do toes on all the lambs from this year. It’ll take two batches: ram lambs, then ewe lambs. We use grape pruning shears to trim hooves. They’ve got round-tipped blades that are curved, and they work much better than any other type of trimmer. I like to have several sets of trimmers so when one gets dull, I can easily switch to a sharp set.
We also gave this batch of ewes their fall dewormer to remove nose bots. Nose bots are a significant parasite for our flock, and ivermectin is the only dewormer that works on them. We still have half of the ewes to deworm, plus all the rams and lambs, but at least we got started. We won’t have to deworm again until next spring, before we turn out onto pasture.