HooFoss trial in Ireland

Steven’s cows are on pasture at the moment and therefore normally he would expect less hoof problems compared to wintertime, where the cows are in the barn. Steven’s hoof trimmer has, however, explained that at the moment, the level on other farms with cows on pasture is approx. 20%. On Steven’s farm the level was at 13% before starting up with HooFoss.

Steven is applying HooFoss in the milking parlour twice per week with a knapsack sprayer. He is making sure to apply enough to soak the back of the heel and the hoof cleft.

So far, Steven has been documenting the effect of HooFoss through photos taken at day 0, 9 and 27. On Stevens photos of six hooves taken at day 0, 9 and 27 are shown. After the first photo at day 0, the application with HooFoss was started. At day 9, after three applications of HooFoss, the initial effect of HooFoss with a black covering layer is very clear. This layer supports healing and protects the problem area from the harmful hoof environment. At day 27 three hooves are completely healed and the remaining three are close to a complete healing.


The knapsack sprayer	HooFoss has dried out after spraying leaving a white layer of active minerals that binds hard to the skin for a couple of days

Observations from Steven Nagle:

After two weeks of treatment, the healing is in progress and looks good.
Labor: Easily applied, not too time consuming
Side effects: None observed, 1st initial spraying on cows with hoof problems caused some tenderness that only lasted a day.
After a couple of weeks of treatment, no hoof problems were observed after trimming 40 cows in the herd. At this time point, the hoof trimmer estimated that the level of hoof problems on other farms are at 20 %.
After 27 days, the horn tissue has dramatically improved, with now no visible signs of heel erosion or slurry heel. The hoof trimmer was very impressed with the health status of the hooves. The cows have been outdoors since February and only now since we started using the Hoofoss in April do we see these results. Also, it has been extremely difficult and moist weather conditions, which would usually result in deterioration of hoof health.
Steven and his hoof trimmer observed that the health of the horn tissue greatly improved. Here the cases of heel horn erosion were no longer detectable, even though the weather was very wet during the trial period.
After three months of use, Steven has no more cows with hoof problems on the treated rear hooves. He only observed new cases of hoof problems on the untreated front hooves.
Hoof care in Stevens heard has become a lot less cumbersome. He used to bandage a lot of cows and cows used to suffer loss of body conditions and less milk due to lameness. Steven is not using Lincospectin anymore.

	Day 0	Day 9	Day 27
Cow 1817 rear left hoof
Cow 1817 rear right hoof
Cow 2004 rear left hoof
Cow 2558 rear left hoof
Cow 2847 rear right hoof
Cow 2851 rear left hoof

Curious about HooFoss? Read more right here.