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01/21/2007: "Toenail Trimmin' Day"

Dorothy had said that she was intending to come down for some time to show us all how to trim Aura's hooves, and today all the stars aligned... I was down at the farm with my mom and daughters, and Dorothy was able to drop in with her clippers and hoof rasp. I had just finished gluing up some more conduit, and I went out to the cow shed intending to take a few pictures. I thought I was going to just be the photographer, but shortly after I took these few pictures I found that trimming hooves is not a two-person job, it was a three-person job.

It turns out you need one person to steady the animal from the opposite side (Nate), one person to raise and hold the hoof (Dorothy), and one person to wield the nippers (me, and later Channa). First Dorothy showed us how you have to clean the hoof area to see the situation:



I was surprised to see how flexible the hooves were... the two sides of the hoof move much more independently than I would have believed. They wiggle around. Then, once you have cleaned out the manure from the hoof, you can see the white inner surface that marks the bottom of the hoof. The idea is to set the inner blade of the nipper flush with this surface, and squeeze the nippers to cut through the hoof exterior rim - it's a lot like trimming fingernails.



Shortly after this photo was taken I went back to finishing the conduit (done, hallelujah!), and Channa took over as third hand. Her comment after doing two more hooves: "That was a bit of a rodeo!". Still, all things considered, Queen Aura took it well. Nobody got really nailed with a kick, and the job got done. Apparently the trickiest, most difficult part was doing the hind leg opposite Aura's sore leg. She doesn't like putting weight on that leg, and put up some fuss. But by then the team was fairly experienced, and made short work of the trimming.

My daughters also got their first chance to milk Aura. Nate dipped their hands in the iodine solution, and then eased them into position to squeeze a teat. Their first squeeze was only a dribble, but the next one got a good squirt. They went home quite proud.



One final small tale about the smart cow, which I hope that our (un-named) but stalwart back-up milker won't mind that I share. Nate and Channa went out of town last week for Nate's birthday, and arranged for our lovely and enthusiastic backup milker to visit the farm for two afternoons. Well, the first day traffic was bad and it was getting on toward dark, so Channa's friend quite reasonably concluded that she had better just get going with the job rather than cut the fresh grass that Aura was used to. She put down dried hay in the parlor instead. Aura was quite miffed by this, and showed her displeasure by pitching a bit of a fit and even knocked over the milk bucket! One does not serve the Queen dry hay at milking time, no-sir-ee!