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Volume 3, Number 3 Summer 1999
Editor, Deb Kimball
Don’t Let Rot Get a Foot in Your Door!
Lisa Roskopf
Flock management that focuses on prevention is one of the key ingredients to operations
that result in maximizing profits and making the best use of the Shepherd’s time.
There is no place that this is truer than in prevention of foot rot.
If you listen to shepherds describing some of their most expensive and time consuming
flock management problems to solve, invariably foot rot is near the top of the list. I
have listened to some real horror stories about the lengths that some have had to go to
get this insidious problem controlled. Hearing these tales of frustration from other
shepherds is one of the things that has driven us to institute an aggressive prevention
program that up until now has been 100% effective.
Contagious hoof rot is an age-old malady of sheep and is currently a major production
problem in many areas of the United States. Hoof rot is generally more prevalent in
temperate climates and has become a widespread concern to western producers. Our ranch is
in the Willamette Valley in Oregon where the wet climate can offer a particularly good
environment for the bacteria to thrive.
Lameness is usually the most obvious sign of contagious foot rot in sheep,
although not all sheep with early infections become lame. It may occur in more than one
foot at the same time. The first visible lesion is a moist reddened area between the toes.
Subsequently the infection spreads under the sole of the hoof, causing the undermining and
separation of the horn tissues. A characteristic foul odor from the foot is common in hoof
rot.
Foot rot is caused by an interaction involving two types of bacteria that grow in the
areas of the foot where oxygen is excluded. The first organism is Fusobacterium
necrophorum. It is a normal inhabitant of soil and sheep manure and is always present
where sheep are raised. There is nothing you can do to prevent this from being present in
your soil.Dichelobacter nodosus is the one necessary for transmission and is the one
critical to avoid coming onto your property. Please note the key word is
“avoid.” Once this bacteria is on your property, the task of controlling foot
rot becomes immensely more difficult and more chancey. The focus of this article is for
those breeders who are not yet facing the difficulty or those people who’s very hard
work have managed to eliminate this bacteria.
I have tried to detail the steps we have taken to avoid the introduction of the
transmission bacteria Dichelobacter nodosus onto our ranch. You may see some practices
here that seem cumbersome and overkill. It is my belief that they are far easier to deal
with than with the problem if it does find its way onto your property.
Human Foot Transmission
We require that anyone coming onto our farm wear our boots (currently we are experimenting
with disposable boots that slip over one’s shoes) before stepping foot on any area
that the sheep will travel. These offending bacteria can easily be born on the shoes/boots
of visitors that come from infected ground. Unknowingly they may transfer these bacteria
into your soil where it can reside in moist ground until picked up on the hoof of
one of your animals. We keep a variety of sizes of boots and require that all visitors
wear them.
Some people may say that they don’t use their shoes or boots in areas of their
farm that have animals. We still require them to wear our boots. No exceptions. We have
found people very cooperative when we’ve explained the reasons. There have been some
occasions where the number of visitors has exceeded the pairs of boots we have. In those
cases, we have people go through a foot bath of zinc sulfate and water mixture.
Animal Foot Transmission
Whenever one of our animals leaves the farm, we drench the foot in a solution of zinc
sulfate prior to allowing the animal to step foot back onto our property. On Return, we
quarantine the animals for eight weeks until we are assured that they are free of hoof rot
or any other diseases that they may have picked up on their journey.
We would not ever buy an animal that we knew to have foot rot. However, we use the same
drenching and quarantine process for bringing new animals onto our farm. We repeatedly
trim hooves and examine carefully for any evidence. We repeat the drenching during this
phase to give ourselves further assurance.
These two steps have been effective in avoiding foot rot on our farm. Although this
does take some time in explaining to visitors and in the quarantining for movement of
animals onto the property, it is our belief that this is a lot less work and expense than
trying to cope with the problem once you get it.
*Note: For those who might be dealing with foot rot problems, some
producers have found success in adding extra zinc mineral to their sheep’s mineral
mix. It's possible extra zinc could help in prevention of the disease. Please check with a
nutritionist about how much to mix.
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