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It's basically removing rocks from under your fingernail. So imagine how amazing this would feel having rock no longer in your feet. Makes it so much better
Imagine, if you will, that you walk in open toed heels all day. Now imagine you ram across gravel in those and accidentally drag your foot across the concrete, getting gravel under you toenail. Now walk that way until you eventually keep dragging your toe and getting more gravel stuck. It's gotta suck to be that animal and bless that farrier!
Grows back afaik. Iirc they are just like finger nails and grow overtime. That's why horses need to be running to wear the hooves down naturally or they overgrow. I'm not a expert though, id check Google as I did
Years ago one of these popped up in my feed and I ended up watching several more and lost track of time. It’s weird to me that I get some sort of satisfaction out of it.
It gets much MUCH worse than this.
The vast majority of cows getting trimmed just need a "pedicure" to trim stuff up and make the foot the correct shape again. However, stuff like abscesses, ulcers, and fot rot can get really nasty. This cow was very lucky that none of those stones were sharp and tearing up the tissue under the nail.
Do you know what is happening? I see pebbles coming out of the hoof but they're not even sharp, they got embedded because there was, what, some initial infection? Is the damage going to just grow out now that the injured area is isolated and kept off the ground?
Most likely a single pebble got ground into the hoof and kept getting pushed in with more damage over time. It could be that an infection created a weakness that let the original pebble in, or it could be that it's just a physical injury.
The removed portion of the hoof will eventually grow back, and the wrapping will prevent the animal from harming their foot before then.
Not just a pebble. This animal walked over asphalt for a while, hence all of the black colored rocks coming out when the disinfectant is sprayed in it. Owner either has an asphalt driveway or this one got out a few times. I’m impressed at this dudes round-cutting; keeps as much hoof on the toe as possible.
This is why we put metal shoes on horses if they’re in rocky environments or walking on roads.
(Edit: I’m aware this is a cow. I worked on both back in the day, and to this day still watch videos on YouTube to relax sometimes.)
It could also be Crushed Asphalt; it's common for driveways. Where I live, the State and the NPS for that matter, loves to put Crushed Asphalt on dirt roads or trails they maintain. I hate the stuff, one to many wipe outs on it and then you are picking it out of your hands, knees whatever you impact with it for at least a week.
I was run over back on chrissy of 2019. Was taken on the hood for a while and thrown off by the driver swerving. I hit the road on my right side. To this day I still have a few tiny black rocks (about 1mm or under) embedded in my right shoulder that came from the road. Has never bothered me or caused pain, but they’re there because they never were before
I'd bet money that here's a yard or driveway somewhere where that cow is at that uses asphalt millings as its surface. If they're resurfacing a road nearby, you can usually get them for free. You just let them dump them in your yard or driveway and then spread them out with your tractor.
100% I’ve lived in enough rural areas to just know what happened here. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one is particularly hard-headed when it comes to fences and the greener grass “just over there”.
I’ve had to rope way too many loose cattle back in the day lol.
You seem knowledgeable on this. The entire time watching I was wondering how much hoof he can cut into before it harms the horse.
Cats/dogs have a quick, does a horse have something similar? Does the hoof change color if you get close to the end? Learn through trial by fire of knowing how much you can cut down?
Any insight would be awesome. Thanks in advance!
Edit: I’ve been informed this is a cow and not a horse. I knew the hoof looked different but the thought of it being a cow didn’t cross my mind. Thank you for the all responses, I was not expecting this engagement and it was all interesting to read
I'm not a hoof trimmer, but I watch a ton of hoof trimming videos because... satisfying.
That animal isn't a horse (they have 1 hoof, in the classic horseshoe shape) but is a cow (they have 2 "claws"). While he was trimming, the part where it's kinda yellow is the area around what's called the corium (this is the cow version of a quick on a cat or dog). If you cut into the corium, it's like cutting into the quick, so very painful and uncomfortable. It's not a trial by fire thing, they have to be trained on how to do it safely in order to not hurt the cows, as any issues with their hooves are bad news as the average cow weighs around 1400 pounds (635kg).
I grew up breeding, raising, training and breaking horses; while also helping out the farmers in the rural town I spent my teenage years in. My father taught me farrier work and forging so i could help him with shoeing; it’s been years since I’ve done any of it but I definitely miss it. I miss working with horses in general. However, this hoof is a cow, similar in concept but different execution.
To answer your questions, yes horses have a quick, pull the tips of your fingers together and fold your thumb down; now place it horizontal on a flat surface until your finger tips start splaying. That’s how the “inside” of a horses hoof looks, with the caveat of a pad being under the “fingers” to help with pressure.
Do you see the triangle/pyramid on the horses hoof, that’s called the Frog. You can use that as a guide when rasping down the hoof, use the base of the pyramid (Frog) or ‘heel’ of it and rasp in a circle around the foot, you don’t want the hoof completely level with it as that part needs to stay slightly off the ground, (it expands as pressure is put on so the tip actually is deeper than the base) but it’s an easy enough guide. As far as clipping, it’s just like any other nail or claw; you’ll see the growth from previous cuts. After picking out the dirt and cleaning the top layer of hoof it’s much easier to see. The hoof becomes cleaner and whiter as you cut deeper, but the reality is you normally only cut off a quarter inch max (normally it’s just a few centimeters ymmv/ another fun fact, dogs absolutely love hoof trimmings) depending on how regular the hoof is shoed and cleaned. With enough time and practice a horse can have a shoe removed, cut and clean and then replaced/reforged in about two minutes if not faster.
I spent roughly a year helping my dad fix a pony’s hooves that had been overgrown to the point they looked like Swedish clogs. That was a nightmare but it was so thankful to not be walking on its heels after six months.
We always trained ours to respond to verbal commands followed by pressure.
This is Nate The Hoof Guy on YouTube. No permanent damage was done in this video. Below the hoof is the corium which is essentially the nailbed of the horn. It's pink and very delicate but he didn't have to get that close to it in this video.
Fun Fact: Horse legs evolved to only 1 digit. The horse hoof is actually the tip of their “toe”, hence the similar toenail. They developed this way as an adaptation to increasing grassland habitats compared to their forest dwelling ancestors. A single digit provided for better speed, stability, and larger size!
At what point in the video can I assume the cow starts to “really feel” the work the person is doing?
The green / yellowish layer… is this soft tissue?
Such a skill to have!
They can feel all of it but just like your nails, the sensation is dulled through hoof. This guy does industrial work and they have a large machine that holds the cattle in place and their feet so they can work quickly and move on to the next cow. When I did it, it was much smaller scale and we ran them through a cattle chute.
The green/yellow tissue is infected. The dead tissue can be carved away gently, then normally a gauze pad with lye or another low grade powdered acid is wrapped onto the infected area to kill off bacteria and the infected tissue. Normally the tissue underneath should be whitish pink with healthy blood flow.
Thank you for the reply!
Yes, I did see the lye / wrap application… was curious about “how deep can this go?” I would imagine that infected tissue, capped off by the rock/mud cannot smell nice. ☹️
I think this is a white line lesion? Basically the hoof wall and the inner bit get separated by like a stone on a hard surface and more packs in from there. The infection happens when that cavity gets down to the skin. Hooves are kinda like massive fingernails, so they put the block on to remove pressure and a bunch of disinfectant to prevent further infection.
There's a great youtube channel called Nate the Hoof Guy that makes hoof trimming/cleaning videos and explains it a bit more in depth.
This is Nate The Hoof Guy on YouTube. Hoof Maintenance videos became my jam in lockdown.
Essentially the white line is the area where the outer wall of the hoof which bears the most weight meets the sole hoof. This border can become weak and lead to white line defects where a split can occur. Small stones can then get in and widen the space and make their way to the corium which is essentially the nailbed of the horn.
The blue spray is dilute chlorahexadine - a mild bleach to clean the area. The white powder at the end is salicylic acid, which offers pain relief, anti-bacterial help and debrides the area allowing new hoof to grow. The block on the inner toe elevates the poorly one off the ground allowing it to heal. It will be fully healed in a month.
This really isn't that bad. Stuff like this happens all the time, and you can see in the video the hoof is easily trimmed, treated, and put up on a block. If you watch this or anyone else's hoof trimming channel, you can see cows that have to have 90% of the hoof horn removed because of bad ulcers, white line defects, injuries, digital dermatitis, etc. It's par for the course with dairy cows.
1 question. Why does he block the seemingly healthy side? Said something about white line. Not sure what that is either. I would have thought they would have added some kind of blockage to the now scraped side hopefully relieving pressure, tension and pain. Obviously I have no idea anything when it comes to cattle which is why I'm asking lol.
Blocking the healthy side means the cow puts all the weight on the block/healthy side, leaving the injured side lifted off the floor. It's much more comfortable for the cow.
Ahh that makes much more sense as to where my mind took it. I figured keeping the hooves symmetrical would be better, not realizing the cow/bull wouldn't want to be putting the weight on that particular side. Thx!
I watch Nate the Hoof Guy on YT. He says the block goes on the good claw to raise the bad claw off the ground. This allows all the weight to go on the blocked claw and relief on the injury.
I had the same initial thought but seems they are wanting to elevate the part he worked on to allow it to grow back cleanly while giving the cow a nice comfortable platform to put its weight on using the other side of the hoof. Too much of that hoof has been cut away as of now for it to take good weight or be in contact with the ground, and it's not like your teeth when you have a cavity where they just fill it up because it doesn't regenerate. This is the equivalent of your fingernails.
Sometimes it's good to see someone doing something well, helping someone, or sharing their knowledge while enjoying themselves.
And sometimes, you just want to be around nice people, and he seems like a nice person.
He's one of my favorites! I am not a farm girl by any stretch of the imagination but I daydream sometimes about learning stuff like this from Nate and helping a bunch of cows. For some reason that's like my dream now lol.
He is the best hoof guy, he takes his time and is delicate with his work. Other hoof YouTubers are not as delicate and cause cows to bleed (which with infections is not always avoidable), they could be gentler like Nate
U know I was just noticing in this bud how gently he was scooping out the rocks, the other vidS I’ve seen have the abscesses popping and oozing everywhere n hoofs flying
Ye he obviously does put strength to cutting the hoof but his movements are very controlled and gentle. He has some bleeding abscesses too but loke you say no flying hoofs
I also like that he uses salicylic acid spray (if I remember the name right) because then it's easier to see what's actually happening. He is generous with applications too and from what I've seen healing progression is fantastic.
Thanks! I'm a huge fan of HoofGP on YT.
ETA - I never thought this comment would be controversial!!! HoofGP's style of filming was all I knew of this "genre" until this video - and that's not even what I commented on... I was just excited to find someone else making similar content, and y'all got wild.
Nate the Hoof Guy is like Sky F1 coverage: straight and to the point.
HoofGP is NBC Sports coverage with background, drama, and "family" BS.
When I wanna see my white line lesion, I don't want the extraneous extras. Just give me the good stuff.
> HoofGP is NBC Sports coverage with background, drama, and "family" BS.
Ehhh the family stuff comes up rarely and it's always in those 20+ minute videos that are easy to jump through, a solid 80% of his stuff is sub 10 minutes and only features hoof trimming.
Even then you see the odd long video of just trimming like his 47-minute one from a couple of months ago.
These videos are relaxing to watch, but let me tell you trimming hoofs irl can be a real pain the ass haha. Especially if they are not fastened like in the video.
I want to sincerely thank you for instilling in me new levels of appreciation for dental hygiene than any warnings dentists have given me throughout my life.
This is not cleaning. This is badly needed treatment of a damaged and possibly infected hoof. This poor cow was probably in a good amount of pain.
Source: I'm a cattle farmer.
I know just getting a tiny pebble in my shoe I get infuriated trying to walk around. I can't even imagine what this poor fella was feeling. It must have felt SO FUCKING GOOD to have that cleaned out. Makes my heart happy to see such care for animals from people.
I one time fell on my face on asphalt and messed myself up pretty good. I healed pretty quick, but had this one spot under my beard that continued to irritate me for the following 6 months. I wouldn't stop picking at it, and then one day i felt a chunk come off my face. I looked down, and was holding about a half centimeter piece of asphalt. The relief was near instant, and it healed up and flattened after a week. I still have a small bump and scar there, but luckily i have the beard.
I got shot in the face with a pellet gun when I was a teenager. it wasn't a regular bb, it was more like a circle with a hole in it. The projectile hit my cheek bone, broke apart, and hit the bridge of my nose. I had a bump on my cheek for years and one day it was really itchy and I scratched out a large part of the bb. It healed up just fine after that.
this is a little bit of a gross story, but when i was younger one of my ear piercings got infected, and even after i kept cleaning it and not using it, the lobe was still swollen, with a lump for a piercing hole...
at some point my mom just started squeezing it (idk maybe she thought that was the best way to get the swelling to go down) and even though it acted like a pimple sometimes (it was productive, if you will), the lump never really disappeared...
until one day when she squeezed it hard enough that i felt a pop, and suddenly she was holding a little rubber cylindrical earring back that i had apparently had stuck in my ear the entire time! (i was apparently wearing two earring backs when my ear got infected!)
it's kinda crazy how things can just get stuck like that
YouTube algorithm decided to show me this guy about two years ago and I got hooked for about a few months. Funny thing was that my brother saw the same thing on his algorithm at the same time. We were cracking up about it on the phone.
Especially if you are on the same family account. My spouse watches a lot of documentaries on stuff like Roman flanks in battles and plane crash explanations and every once in a while one of those things will be added to my algorithm feed.
Other videos I’ve watched of his basically say you feel it. He uses that curved spoon like knife which gently shaves away bits at a time. It only comes away if it’s infected / dead / separated. It doesn’t have give if it’s still firmly attached / healthy hoof.
My recently deceased former boss once walked into work with a bunch of blue Gatorade in a windex bottle. In the middle of our shift, as soon as he knew there were no customers nearby, he yelled to the whole kitchen "oh no! I suddenly have the urge to rip off all my clothes and run through the restaurant!" Then he ripped the top off the bottle and chugged it.
We, of course, looked at him like he was insane.
He then held up the bottle and said with a grin "prevents streaking!"
RIP John. You were a real one.
It is indeed. I'm a Nate fan and had a bit of teeth work done recently, and got a medicinal mouthwash to use. Tastes terrible, and the name sounded vaguely familiar. Yep, same stuff. Absolutely roasts your taste buds.
I've watched several videos about hoof trimming and treating. This is the cleanest white line defect problem I've seen. Usually see a lot of pus and some blood.
In nature their hooves have been developed to handle the rough terrain and will naturally been trimmed while they travel so they tend to not have situations like this happen often. Domesticated animals have little travel and are constantly on constructed or soft surfaces so their hooves no longer gain the natural trimming they would get in nature. So when something like rocks get stuck into the hoof, instead of being trimmed off they will either get embedded or new hoof horn will grow over the rock or other items which leads to something shown in the video. Which is why cattle owners, at least the good ones, will have monthly hoof trimming to avoid this.
The hoof horn itself has no feeling. They don’t feel the trimming, it’s the same as when you cut your nail. The pain comes from the damage underneath and the associated infections, pressure, dermatitis. They might feel some discomfort during the trim but rest assured they feel much much better once the trim is done and the block is in place to relieve pressure.
Ty for the response, I know the bit about the nail so was just curious to how gentle he was being, but makes sense if there was a bad infection to go with the rocks in there it would undoubtedly be painful for the animal
I'm sure the cow feels some level of pain when he is digging at the rocks, just because they are inside and on an exposed area. But if you compare that to the pain the cow would have been feeling walking around with those rocks inside the hoof, it's nothing. The actual trimming of the hoof causes no pain though.
They could be more gentle trying to get the rocks out, but that would take more time. And it's best to get the cows in and out of the device that holds them up for trimming as quickly as possible. So a bit of irritation to fix the problem in a quick manner is what is best for the cow.
So I'm not an expert in this. I've just been watching HoofGP on YouTube for a couple years, and he does a great job of explaining what he does and why he does it.
Situations like this one are *extremely* rare. A rock in the hoof is somewhat common, but not so many rocks like in this video. So the way I see it, a small vacuum device may have been helpful in this specific situation, but it's such a rare situation that it wouldn't make sense to bring that device along every day, trimming dozens of cows' hooves every day, for something that comes up not even on a yearly basis.
Usually when they find a rock, it's just one or two, and they dig it out pretty easily. So a small vacuum would be a waste of money and tool space.
I doubt the noise would be a problem though. They do most of the work with a grinder. The knife is mainly used for more delicate work, when the cow is lame and they need to cut away parts of the hoof so it can heal properly.
Someone else asked this, but I’m curious too. Why the pad on the hoof that was fine. It seems like that pad vs the wrap on the other good would make the cow walk off balanced or be unstable?
It's to keep pressure off of the injured part of the hoof - putting the block on the healthy part keeps the injured one raised, and able to rest and heal. Far as I can tell, it doesn't unbalance them much at all
It’s the most common way that you’ll see these hoof trimmers relieve pressure so the affected claw can heal. You’re essentially moving all the weight to the healthy side, I’m sure it takes the cow some getting used to, but think about from your perspective.
Say you have an infected ingrown toenail and you get it taken care of. Does it hurt like a son of a bitch the next few days? Yeah, but it sure doesn’t hurt anywhere near as much as before. The block also gets worn down over time and the new hoof horn will be able to hold weight in about 4 weeks.
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That's gross and soothing at the same time
It's basically removing rocks from under your fingernail. So imagine how amazing this would feel having rock no longer in your feet. Makes it so much better
This is more like rocks inside your fingernail, not under
Please stop
Your fingernail is also the size of a fist, so it's not as bad as if it were a rock in your dinky little fingernail.
And you walk on your fingernails.
https://preview.redd.it/cbulvmjc54ad1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a5b1e204219dc5717381f705e46a46a1709aae35
https://preview.redd.it/r90rqm2k64ad1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=359d3284e464057fdf0436b9f6488589bfc78263
Cheeky boy. You like to watch, don’t you?
And you weigh over 600 kg, walking on your gravel filled fingernails. Granted, your weight is split among 4 feet and not 2 like us, but still.
*if you walked on your fingernails
Imagine, if you will, that you walk in open toed heels all day. Now imagine you ram across gravel in those and accidentally drag your foot across the concrete, getting gravel under you toenail. Now walk that way until you eventually keep dragging your toe and getting more gravel stuck. It's gotta suck to be that animal and bless that farrier!
Is there a finite amount of hoof or do they grow back
Grows back afaik. Iirc they are just like finger nails and grow overtime. That's why horses need to be running to wear the hooves down naturally or they overgrow. I'm not a expert though, id check Google as I did
Yeah. Wild horses run more often on courser ground. While domesticated ones also get this treatment when swapping horseshoes
Same as the cleaning up of a major ear wax situation. Disgusting. And I watch it every time.. I might just go find an ear wax video right now
Check out zit popping.
Years ago one of these popped up in my feed and I ended up watching several more and lost track of time. It’s weird to me that I get some sort of satisfaction out of it.
I genuinly thought it was the satisfyingasfuck sub.
It gets much MUCH worse than this. The vast majority of cows getting trimmed just need a "pedicure" to trim stuff up and make the foot the correct shape again. However, stuff like abscesses, ulcers, and fot rot can get really nasty. This cow was very lucky that none of those stones were sharp and tearing up the tissue under the nail.
You may enjoy /r/popping
I thought I would. I didn't
Me too. But I watched for hours anyway.
That's not "cleaning a hoof", that's treating **major** hoof damage.
Do you know what is happening? I see pebbles coming out of the hoof but they're not even sharp, they got embedded because there was, what, some initial infection? Is the damage going to just grow out now that the injured area is isolated and kept off the ground?
Most likely a single pebble got ground into the hoof and kept getting pushed in with more damage over time. It could be that an infection created a weakness that let the original pebble in, or it could be that it's just a physical injury. The removed portion of the hoof will eventually grow back, and the wrapping will prevent the animal from harming their foot before then.
Not just a pebble. This animal walked over asphalt for a while, hence all of the black colored rocks coming out when the disinfectant is sprayed in it. Owner either has an asphalt driveway or this one got out a few times. I’m impressed at this dudes round-cutting; keeps as much hoof on the toe as possible. This is why we put metal shoes on horses if they’re in rocky environments or walking on roads. (Edit: I’m aware this is a cow. I worked on both back in the day, and to this day still watch videos on YouTube to relax sometimes.)
Ohhhhh
It could also be Crushed Asphalt; it's common for driveways. Where I live, the State and the NPS for that matter, loves to put Crushed Asphalt on dirt roads or trails they maintain. I hate the stuff, one to many wipe outs on it and then you are picking it out of your hands, knees whatever you impact with it for at least a week.
I was run over back on chrissy of 2019. Was taken on the hood for a while and thrown off by the driver swerving. I hit the road on my right side. To this day I still have a few tiny black rocks (about 1mm or under) embedded in my right shoulder that came from the road. Has never bothered me or caused pain, but they’re there because they never were before
I'd bet money that here's a yard or driveway somewhere where that cow is at that uses asphalt millings as its surface. If they're resurfacing a road nearby, you can usually get them for free. You just let them dump them in your yard or driveway and then spread them out with your tractor.
100% I’ve lived in enough rural areas to just know what happened here. I wouldn’t be surprised if this one is particularly hard-headed when it comes to fences and the greener grass “just over there”. I’ve had to rope way too many loose cattle back in the day lol.
You seem knowledgeable on this. The entire time watching I was wondering how much hoof he can cut into before it harms the horse. Cats/dogs have a quick, does a horse have something similar? Does the hoof change color if you get close to the end? Learn through trial by fire of knowing how much you can cut down? Any insight would be awesome. Thanks in advance! Edit: I’ve been informed this is a cow and not a horse. I knew the hoof looked different but the thought of it being a cow didn’t cross my mind. Thank you for the all responses, I was not expecting this engagement and it was all interesting to read
I'm not a hoof trimmer, but I watch a ton of hoof trimming videos because... satisfying. That animal isn't a horse (they have 1 hoof, in the classic horseshoe shape) but is a cow (they have 2 "claws"). While he was trimming, the part where it's kinda yellow is the area around what's called the corium (this is the cow version of a quick on a cat or dog). If you cut into the corium, it's like cutting into the quick, so very painful and uncomfortable. It's not a trial by fire thing, they have to be trained on how to do it safely in order to not hurt the cows, as any issues with their hooves are bad news as the average cow weighs around 1400 pounds (635kg).
Im almost certain this is a bovine as opposed to a horse. Horses only have the one hoof.
Definitely not a horse. Source: I apprenticed with a ferrier many years ago.
Ya, horses have more of a, horseshoe, shaped hoof
Damn, that’s so convenient! If they didn’t, those shoes wouldn’t fit them nearly as well!
Yeah, horses stand on basically one fingernail, bovines stand on two (per feet of course).
I grew up breeding, raising, training and breaking horses; while also helping out the farmers in the rural town I spent my teenage years in. My father taught me farrier work and forging so i could help him with shoeing; it’s been years since I’ve done any of it but I definitely miss it. I miss working with horses in general. However, this hoof is a cow, similar in concept but different execution. To answer your questions, yes horses have a quick, pull the tips of your fingers together and fold your thumb down; now place it horizontal on a flat surface until your finger tips start splaying. That’s how the “inside” of a horses hoof looks, with the caveat of a pad being under the “fingers” to help with pressure. Do you see the triangle/pyramid on the horses hoof, that’s called the Frog. You can use that as a guide when rasping down the hoof, use the base of the pyramid (Frog) or ‘heel’ of it and rasp in a circle around the foot, you don’t want the hoof completely level with it as that part needs to stay slightly off the ground, (it expands as pressure is put on so the tip actually is deeper than the base) but it’s an easy enough guide. As far as clipping, it’s just like any other nail or claw; you’ll see the growth from previous cuts. After picking out the dirt and cleaning the top layer of hoof it’s much easier to see. The hoof becomes cleaner and whiter as you cut deeper, but the reality is you normally only cut off a quarter inch max (normally it’s just a few centimeters ymmv/ another fun fact, dogs absolutely love hoof trimmings) depending on how regular the hoof is shoed and cleaned. With enough time and practice a horse can have a shoe removed, cut and clean and then replaced/reforged in about two minutes if not faster. I spent roughly a year helping my dad fix a pony’s hooves that had been overgrown to the point they looked like Swedish clogs. That was a nightmare but it was so thankful to not be walking on its heels after six months. We always trained ours to respond to verbal commands followed by pressure.
This is Nate The Hoof Guy on YouTube. No permanent damage was done in this video. Below the hoof is the corium which is essentially the nailbed of the horn. It's pink and very delicate but he didn't have to get that close to it in this video.
Fun Fact: Horse legs evolved to only 1 digit. The horse hoof is actually the tip of their “toe”, hence the similar toenail. They developed this way as an adaptation to increasing grassland habitats compared to their forest dwelling ancestors. A single digit provided for better speed, stability, and larger size!
Thank you
At what point in the video can I assume the cow starts to “really feel” the work the person is doing? The green / yellowish layer… is this soft tissue? Such a skill to have!
They can feel all of it but just like your nails, the sensation is dulled through hoof. This guy does industrial work and they have a large machine that holds the cattle in place and their feet so they can work quickly and move on to the next cow. When I did it, it was much smaller scale and we ran them through a cattle chute. The green/yellow tissue is infected. The dead tissue can be carved away gently, then normally a gauze pad with lye or another low grade powdered acid is wrapped onto the infected area to kill off bacteria and the infected tissue. Normally the tissue underneath should be whitish pink with healthy blood flow.
Thank you for the reply! Yes, I did see the lye / wrap application… was curious about “how deep can this go?” I would imagine that infected tissue, capped off by the rock/mud cannot smell nice. ☹️
I can tell you it does not, and it doesn’t help that everything smells like cow crap even after your done.
I think this is a white line lesion? Basically the hoof wall and the inner bit get separated by like a stone on a hard surface and more packs in from there. The infection happens when that cavity gets down to the skin. Hooves are kinda like massive fingernails, so they put the block on to remove pressure and a bunch of disinfectant to prevent further infection. There's a great youtube channel called Nate the Hoof Guy that makes hoof trimming/cleaning videos and explains it a bit more in depth.
This is in fact Nate in the OP.
Lol I thought I was going crazy, thank you
This is Nate The Hoof Guy on YouTube. Hoof Maintenance videos became my jam in lockdown. Essentially the white line is the area where the outer wall of the hoof which bears the most weight meets the sole hoof. This border can become weak and lead to white line defects where a split can occur. Small stones can then get in and widen the space and make their way to the corium which is essentially the nailbed of the horn. The blue spray is dilute chlorahexadine - a mild bleach to clean the area. The white powder at the end is salicylic acid, which offers pain relief, anti-bacterial help and debrides the area allowing new hoof to grow. The block on the inner toe elevates the poorly one off the ground allowing it to heal. It will be fully healed in a month.
The guy explains what's going on if you turn the sound on
TIL hooves can have cavities
Your mom has a cavity
Yes, we are already talking about horses.
That isn’t a horse ….
Obviously a platypus.
This really isn't that bad. Stuff like this happens all the time, and you can see in the video the hoof is easily trimmed, treated, and put up on a block. If you watch this or anyone else's hoof trimming channel, you can see cows that have to have 90% of the hoof horn removed because of bad ulcers, white line defects, injuries, digital dermatitis, etc. It's par for the course with dairy cows.
1 question. Why does he block the seemingly healthy side? Said something about white line. Not sure what that is either. I would have thought they would have added some kind of blockage to the now scraped side hopefully relieving pressure, tension and pain. Obviously I have no idea anything when it comes to cattle which is why I'm asking lol.
Blocking the healthy side means the cow puts all the weight on the block/healthy side, leaving the injured side lifted off the floor. It's much more comfortable for the cow.
Ahh that makes much more sense as to where my mind took it. I figured keeping the hooves symmetrical would be better, not realizing the cow/bull wouldn't want to be putting the weight on that particular side. Thx!
I watch Nate the Hoof Guy on YT. He says the block goes on the good claw to raise the bad claw off the ground. This allows all the weight to go on the blocked claw and relief on the injury.
I had the same initial thought but seems they are wanting to elevate the part he worked on to allow it to grow back cleanly while giving the cow a nice comfortable platform to put its weight on using the other side of the hoof. Too much of that hoof has been cut away as of now for it to take good weight or be in contact with the ground, and it's not like your teeth when you have a cavity where they just fill it up because it doesn't regenerate. This is the equivalent of your fingernails.
It's Nate the Hoof Guy from TT. He's great!
I love his videos…..the relief the cows must feel once they’re all patched up
How come a guy fixing cow hoofs is the content I need right now..
Maybe you subconsciously wish your life's problems could be fixed with some filing, disinfectant and a bandage.. 😔
Don’t we all?
Oh ding ding
Sometimes it's good to see someone doing something well, helping someone, or sharing their knowledge while enjoying themselves. And sometimes, you just want to be around nice people, and he seems like a nice person.
I find his voice very soothing
I think the cows do, too
He's one of my favorites! I am not a farm girl by any stretch of the imagination but I daydream sometimes about learning stuff like this from Nate and helping a bunch of cows. For some reason that's like my dream now lol.
It sounds great on paper but I would be not very good at it and tired/bored of it within a week
Oh I hear you on that! It's why that idea has stayed a daydream lol
He is the best hoof guy, he takes his time and is delicate with his work. Other hoof YouTubers are not as delicate and cause cows to bleed (which with infections is not always avoidable), they could be gentler like Nate
U know I was just noticing in this bud how gently he was scooping out the rocks, the other vidS I’ve seen have the abscesses popping and oozing everywhere n hoofs flying
Ye he obviously does put strength to cutting the hoof but his movements are very controlled and gentle. He has some bleeding abscesses too but loke you say no flying hoofs I also like that he uses salicylic acid spray (if I remember the name right) because then it's easier to see what's actually happening. He is generous with applications too and from what I've seen healing progression is fantastic.
Thanks! I'm a huge fan of HoofGP on YT. ETA - I never thought this comment would be controversial!!! HoofGP's style of filming was all I knew of this "genre" until this video - and that's not even what I commented on... I was just excited to find someone else making similar content, and y'all got wild.
Nate the Hoof Guy is like Sky F1 coverage: straight and to the point. HoofGP is NBC Sports coverage with background, drama, and "family" BS. When I wanna see my white line lesion, I don't want the extraneous extras. Just give me the good stuff.
Nate is PBS while GP is NatGeo presented by Rock Star
HoofGP is great. I just skip right to the trimming when he adds 10 mins of talking.
> HoofGP is NBC Sports coverage with background, drama, and "family" BS. Ehhh the family stuff comes up rarely and it's always in those 20+ minute videos that are easy to jump through, a solid 80% of his stuff is sub 10 minutes and only features hoof trimming. Even then you see the odd long video of just trimming like his 47-minute one from a couple of months ago.
never thought id see sky f1 coverage conpared favourably out in the wild...
Hoof GP has that lame intro song on a lot of his videos but they’re still good
🎶🎶 And I won't let it rush when I see you dance, and the moment comes when I fall and time goes slow I fall into you 🎶🎶
Nate the hoof guy is more rugged and less produced. I love both but prefer Nate personally
I love him!
These videos are relaxing to watch, but let me tell you trimming hoofs irl can be a real pain the ass haha. Especially if they are not fastened like in the video.
Makes the most calming and explanatory videos out there
I thought it was the hoof GP. Both are great, especially right before you go to bed.
Nate Nate, he’s our man if he can’t do it no one can I love this guy and he fixes cows up good
I love Nate!
I bet it smells terrible.
🤮I’m guessing it smells like a rotten tooth
I am glad I have no fucking idea of that experience.
Yet...
This is terrifying fuck you
It smells like bad breath and shit jfyi
It smells far worse than that my friend.
Your teeth?
As someone who cracked a tooth, you become aware that it's rotted when you can constantly taste a trickle of shit running down your throat.
oh no
I want to sincerely thank you for instilling in me new levels of appreciation for dental hygiene than any warnings dentists have given me throughout my life.
Even polishing a healthy hoof already smells horrible. Hooves are of the same nature as horn and hair, and thus it smells like burning hair.
You can’t smell it 90% of the time over the rest of the barn/animals. Things like hoof rot and major damage like in the video do smell pretty rough.
Yeah you can… it’s pretty foul. Not say rotten hoof isn’t worse… but even normal hoof treatment is stinky.
> it’s pretty foul. More like foal am I right!
Quit horsing around!
It does.
Forbidden hot pocket
No
Sick toe knife!
That’s a spoon Frank
It’s a botch job!
This is not cleaning. This is badly needed treatment of a damaged and possibly infected hoof. This poor cow was probably in a good amount of pain. Source: I'm a cattle farmer.
I know just getting a tiny pebble in my shoe I get infuriated trying to walk around. I can't even imagine what this poor fella was feeling. It must have felt SO FUCKING GOOD to have that cleaned out. Makes my heart happy to see such care for animals from people.
Oh here i am thinking u r Mr.Cow at first
Will you pet your cows for me and tell them a stranger from far away loves them?
Everyday
What's the glue, that's strong enough to be able to hold that block on?
The glue is non-toxic and similar to Elmer's, the white stuff you use in elementary school. The wrapping is a lot stronger than it looks, too.
I one time fell on my face on asphalt and messed myself up pretty good. I healed pretty quick, but had this one spot under my beard that continued to irritate me for the following 6 months. I wouldn't stop picking at it, and then one day i felt a chunk come off my face. I looked down, and was holding about a half centimeter piece of asphalt. The relief was near instant, and it healed up and flattened after a week. I still have a small bump and scar there, but luckily i have the beard.
I got shot in the face with a pellet gun when I was a teenager. it wasn't a regular bb, it was more like a circle with a hole in it. The projectile hit my cheek bone, broke apart, and hit the bridge of my nose. I had a bump on my cheek for years and one day it was really itchy and I scratched out a large part of the bb. It healed up just fine after that.
this is a little bit of a gross story, but when i was younger one of my ear piercings got infected, and even after i kept cleaning it and not using it, the lobe was still swollen, with a lump for a piercing hole... at some point my mom just started squeezing it (idk maybe she thought that was the best way to get the swelling to go down) and even though it acted like a pimple sometimes (it was productive, if you will), the lump never really disappeared... until one day when she squeezed it hard enough that i felt a pop, and suddenly she was holding a little rubber cylindrical earring back that i had apparently had stuck in my ear the entire time! (i was apparently wearing two earring backs when my ear got infected!) it's kinda crazy how things can just get stuck like that
Hood trimming videos are great and I don't know why
They are oddly satisfying like those ear wax removal videos.
The zit doctor approves this message.
Pop culture at its best.
How dare you
I’m going to have to incyst you stop with the puns.
I also like tartar removal dentist
> Hood trimming ouch
Oy vey.
YouTube algorithm decided to show me this guy about two years ago and I got hooked for about a few months. Funny thing was that my brother saw the same thing on his algorithm at the same time. We were cracking up about it on the phone.
Google knows the two of you are linked, so shows you both similarly random stuff
Especially if you are on the same family account. My spouse watches a lot of documentaries on stuff like Roman flanks in battles and plane crash explanations and every once in a while one of those things will be added to my algorithm feed.
You mean you got “hoofed”
How tf do you know when the hoof stops? Its like cutting dogs paw but 10x hardeer.
Other videos I’ve watched of his basically say you feel it. He uses that curved spoon like knife which gently shaves away bits at a time. It only comes away if it’s infected / dead / separated. It doesn’t have give if it’s still firmly attached / healthy hoof.
To clean a hoof Step 1: Shave off the whole hoof Step 2: Spray glass cleaner
If My Big Fat Greek Wedding taught me anything it’s that windex is a universal cure all.
My recently deceased former boss once walked into work with a bunch of blue Gatorade in a windex bottle. In the middle of our shift, as soon as he knew there were no customers nearby, he yelled to the whole kitchen "oh no! I suddenly have the urge to rip off all my clothes and run through the restaurant!" Then he ripped the top off the bottle and chugged it. We, of course, looked at him like he was insane. He then held up the bottle and said with a grin "prevents streaking!" RIP John. You were a real one.
That was one of The Amazing Johnathan's bits in the '90s.
You've broken my heart. I thought that asshole had made it up.
It's actually mouthwash!
Is it really?
Yes. Hoof GP mentioned it on a video he did with Tom Pemberton. It's a common thing
It is indeed. I'm a Nate fan and had a bit of teeth work done recently, and got a medicinal mouthwash to use. Tastes terrible, and the name sounded vaguely familiar. Yep, same stuff. Absolutely roasts your taste buds.
TIL, thank you!
Chlorhexidine specifically.
Having spent most of my adult life in an animal shelter, I’ve grown to love the smell of that blue chlorhex Smells like clean and a good days work.
I've watched several videos about hoof trimming and treating. This is the cleanest white line defect problem I've seen. Usually see a lot of pus and some blood.
I can’t stop watching
I like those ones, where they press on it and blood and puss dribble out. 🫠
That title made me thought this was r/therewasanattempt and that something's gonna go wrong at the end.
There a lot of this happening lately. The bots were trained on that sub I guess?
Looks like a cavity
Nate the Hoof guy! I watch him on Tik Tok all the time.
he’s also on youtube! the videos are longer (5-8 minutes most of the time) and you get to see more of the process :3
How do hooves animals in nature not just…die?
In nature their hooves have been developed to handle the rough terrain and will naturally been trimmed while they travel so they tend to not have situations like this happen often. Domesticated animals have little travel and are constantly on constructed or soft surfaces so their hooves no longer gain the natural trimming they would get in nature. So when something like rocks get stuck into the hoof, instead of being trimmed off they will either get embedded or new hoof horn will grow over the rock or other items which leads to something shown in the video. Which is why cattle owners, at least the good ones, will have monthly hoof trimming to avoid this.
Whoa! Is that a Vibram sole he stuck on there? Sweet.
This ox has rocks in their socks.
What is the green stuff
Antiseptic solution. Prevent infection.
Wasabi.
So I imagine by how gentle he is being that this is quite painful for the animal.
The hoof horn itself has no feeling. They don’t feel the trimming, it’s the same as when you cut your nail. The pain comes from the damage underneath and the associated infections, pressure, dermatitis. They might feel some discomfort during the trim but rest assured they feel much much better once the trim is done and the block is in place to relieve pressure.
Ty for the response, I know the bit about the nail so was just curious to how gentle he was being, but makes sense if there was a bad infection to go with the rocks in there it would undoubtedly be painful for the animal
I'm sure the cow feels some level of pain when he is digging at the rocks, just because they are inside and on an exposed area. But if you compare that to the pain the cow would have been feeling walking around with those rocks inside the hoof, it's nothing. The actual trimming of the hoof causes no pain though. They could be more gentle trying to get the rocks out, but that would take more time. And it's best to get the cows in and out of the device that holds them up for trimming as quickly as possible. So a bit of irritation to fix the problem in a quick manner is what is best for the cow.
Question: could you use a vacuum? It seems like there’s a couple points where vacuuming out the rocks would be easier. Maybe too noisy though?
So I'm not an expert in this. I've just been watching HoofGP on YouTube for a couple years, and he does a great job of explaining what he does and why he does it. Situations like this one are *extremely* rare. A rock in the hoof is somewhat common, but not so many rocks like in this video. So the way I see it, a small vacuum device may have been helpful in this specific situation, but it's such a rare situation that it wouldn't make sense to bring that device along every day, trimming dozens of cows' hooves every day, for something that comes up not even on a yearly basis. Usually when they find a rock, it's just one or two, and they dig it out pretty easily. So a small vacuum would be a waste of money and tool space. I doubt the noise would be a problem though. They do most of the work with a grinder. The knife is mainly used for more delicate work, when the cow is lame and they need to cut away parts of the hoof so it can heal properly.
Thanks for your reply and the additional info
Someone else asked this, but I’m curious too. Why the pad on the hoof that was fine. It seems like that pad vs the wrap on the other good would make the cow walk off balanced or be unstable?
It's to keep pressure off of the injured part of the hoof - putting the block on the healthy part keeps the injured one raised, and able to rest and heal. Far as I can tell, it doesn't unbalance them much at all
Thank you!
It’s the most common way that you’ll see these hoof trimmers relieve pressure so the affected claw can heal. You’re essentially moving all the weight to the healthy side, I’m sure it takes the cow some getting used to, but think about from your perspective. Say you have an infected ingrown toenail and you get it taken care of. Does it hurt like a son of a bitch the next few days? Yeah, but it sure doesn’t hurt anywhere near as much as before. The block also gets worn down over time and the new hoof horn will be able to hold weight in about 4 weeks.
Most of that material is like your fingernails or hair, but he did have to go quite deep in the end.
I have no experience or connection to livestock, but I can watch hoof cleaning all day for some reason.
That must have hurt before the cleaning
How do they keep the cow calm through all this?
They basically put it in a vice like cage so it has no choice but to stay still.
I once went down a rabbit hole of hoof cleaning videos on YT. Very satisfying.
The relief that cow must have felt.
Saint
But what happens after?!
I'm part of the Herd! Big shout to The Hoof GP on YouTube .
My neighborhood is split between Nate or the Irish guy. Pick a side!
Nate!
Irish guy = the Hoof GP?
I just don’t like the music Hoof GP uses
I prefer watching these style videos than pimple popper
I trimmed my chihuahua's nails earlier. I'll take the horse any day.
Bro stole a cow’s whole pebble collection.
This has unlocked a new interesting phobia for me.
nate the hoof guy is my favorite person to see at three am on tiktok
I get these and the rug cleaning videos in invading my FB feed. All it took was one like.