Hoof trimming will be at Prewitt fairgrounds

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Steer hoof trimming will be March 23 at the Bi-County Fairgrounds in Prewitt by Cibola County cooperative Extension Agent Jason Lamb.

Lamb will be trimming hooves of those who show up between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m., he said, during spring break so that students may be able to bring their steers.

"Trimmed hooves help steers walk better and keeps them structurally sound," he said. In nature, cattle walk on rocks and other things and that helps keep their hooves trimmed back.

"Steers may walk a mile or two to water twice a day and that helps with their hooves.

"They will go in the morning and in the evening, but some may go only once, or not every day and some only every couple days or so," Lamb said. Regardless of how often the steers walk to water, their grazing in the fields and pastures and open range all help hold the hooves in check, he said.

Steers that are being readied for the annual Bi-County Fair Labor Day weekend are usually kept in pens or barns and do not have Mother Nature's assistance in keeping their hooves trimmed.

"I may get four, I met get 10, and I may not get any," Lamb said of the event. One year he sat and read a book since no one showed up.

He uses a hand-held grinder with a special coarse wood plate that grinds the hooves down, he said.

The steer is placed into a special chute, a winch then turns the steer on its side, the legs are tied and the hooves are then trimmed, Lamb said.

Steers sometimes have cracked hooves as well and those are cleaned and superglued back together, Lamb said.

Sometimes pigs who are being readied for the fair also have cracked hooves as well.

"This mostly happens when there is moisture, then dry, moisture and dry, the hooves of the steers are not so much of a problem but the pigs are and they need treatment.

"We'll use turpentine on the hooves to dry them up and suck all the moisture up, then we will fill them up with superglue it really works well," Lamb said.

For more information on the hoof trimming event, please call Lamb at the New Mexico State University-Cibola County Extension Office at (505) 287-9266.

— To contact reporter Jim Tiffin call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: tiffin.independent@yahoo.com