Our Highland cattle are just about to go out onto the Brooks to begin their summer programme of being lawn mowers on our fields. Before we move them out there, we have to make sure they are in the best condition for the job! This year, we gave them a pedicure.
Cattle hooves are like our fingernails, made of keratin and grow continually throughout their life. Most of the time they become worn down from walking on hard ground, however after such a wet winter this hasn’t happened and so we had to get their hooves trimmed.
This isn’t a job we can do ourselves, as picking up the hoof on an annoyed 500kg highland cow is not something I’d like to try. Luckily there are professional cattle hoof trimmers who we can hire to do the job for us.
So, on Friday last week, our local trimmer Jon came into deal with our herd. He’s got a innovative cattle crush that allows him to immobilise the cow and provide him easy access to their feet. He does this by turning the cattle through 90 degrees:
To actually trim their hooves, Jon used an angle grinder with a special hoof trimming disc attached to it. This sped the process up rapidly, so each cow was only on it’s side for a few minutes.
The cattle seemed completely non-plussed about what was going on! Once they had been returned to vertical and let out of the crush they were back to grazing as usual.
As of today, some of the herd will be going out onto the North Brooks, towards Bank’s Track. The remainder of the herd are destined to graze the Heathland for the next few weeks. If you visit the heath, we ask that you make sure all the gates are shut and dogs are kept on leads.