Lime Stone Out Croppings = Ozark Mountain Automatic Hoof Trimmers
Trimming Hoofs on Meat Goats
Hoof trimming is very time consuming, and time is worth money. The commercial meat goat producers, who have 300 to 1,000 goats running on 600 to 3,000 acres, cannot trim hooves. We know many producers who have that many meat goats.
Some goats need to have theirhooves trimmed every two to three months, others never need them trimmed. After we had been breeding full blood Boer goats for about six years and had built our herd from a foundation of seven does to about twenty five does, we noticed that we had six does that needed to have their hooves trimmed every three months. After we examined the pedigrees of these six does, we found out that one of them was one of our original does, and the other five were daughters and granddaughters of that one doe. Needless to say we culled those six does.
None of the does in our present herd have ever had their hooves trimmed. Our does run on ten acres of steep Ozark Mountain pasture that has lots of limestone out-cropping. Show goats, which are confined to small pens and are fed high power rations, need to have their hooves trimmed often.
The American Boer Goat Association web site has a good video on how to trim hoofs (http://www.abga.org/tattoos.php?pagename=hoof.htm.)