Pedicures for the dairy herd
- Laura Wayte
- Apr 8
- 2 min read
The other day I got to the farm and saw from far away a dairy cow lying on a truck bed in the main barn. My heart dropped.
My first thought was that an animal had been euthanized and was being taken out of the barn. Thankfully, I was wrong!
As I walked closer, I could see it was actually a cow resting on a truck-bed surface while her hooves were being trimmed.
Travis Robison, of Robison Hoof Trimming in Mount Angel, saw me watching and smiled while he let the cow down to the ground. He drives his specially outfitted truck to dairies in western Oregon maintaining the animals' feet.
The truck is interesting: on the back there is a metal, cow-sized box. The cow walks into it and over some straps on the ground. When she's closed in, Travis tightens the straps around her belly so she can be tilted and lifted with the box up onto the truck bed. Now, laying on her side, he can secure her legs and then trim her feet. The whole process takes about 10 minutes.
It certainly must feel awkward for the cow, but there wasn't much evidence of high stress for most of them. The younger ones were the most skittish, having never done this before. The noisiest complaints came from those who were separated from their calves during this process.
"I've seen cows fall asleep on the bed while I'm working," he said with a smile.
When the trimming is done, Travis unstraps the cow's legs, lowers her back to the ground and then loosens the straps. When the front door opens, she walks out and joins her buddies.
All domesticated hoofed animals, called ungulates, need regular hoof trimming. If they aren't trimmed regularly, they will grow too long, become painful and be prone to infections. A lame cow will not feed itself well and this will affect their health and productivity.
