- Use zinc sulphate rather than copper sulphate/bluestone as it is less likely to sting raw skin (yours or the animals). It is available from rural supply stores, but if you want a small amount it’s probably easier to find at your local horse feed outlet, vet clinic, or ask a local dairy farmer if you can buy a kilogram or two (it is usually sold in 25kg bags).
- The mix needs to be a 10% solution (1 part zinc sulphate – 10 parts water).
- Trained livestock make this job easier – for example, handling young kids’ legs from birth gets them used to have their legs picked up and hooves examined later in life.
- Rubber buckets are extremely useful if you only have a couple of animals to treat, as its harder for them to successfully tip over a bucket. Other people use plastic jars (old peanut butter jars for example) and do one hoof at a time as it's easy to hold the hoof in the jar.
- To treat a goat, tie up to a fence by a very short (a few inches) rope, making sure they can lean onto the fence; goats don’t like being one leg short so having something secure for them to lean on can help keep them calm.
- For the least stress on your back (and your temper) a purpose-built pen is easiest for sheep and large numbers of goats. The best one I’ve seen used a shower tray set into concrete, with a wooden pen built around it. The owner could put six goats or three sheep all in at the same time – the more squished in the better, so they can’t escape sloshing around in the solution. The pen then opened into a larger, concrete-lined pen where the animals could be kept until their hooves were dry (for best penetration of the foot wash).
- The other option is to create a concrete footbath in the base of a race, so animals can be walked in; again, packing them in so they have no choice but to stand in the solution and slosh around is the best strategy.
How to soak sheep/goat hooves
7 tips for soaking hooves
