The Horrors of Hoof Hacking - a How-(not)-To

My hands are shaking, my back is killing me, and I am bruised all over - just another ordinary evening as a goatherd...Tonight's fun activity: hoof trimming. Basically, goats were designed to live somewhere in the wilds of Tibet, where their hooves are kept naturally worn down by running and jumping on rocky outcrops. Domesticated goats, however, lack this advantage and require monthly hoof trimming by their owners. (I did try running them up and down the driveway hundreds of times to simulate Tibetan terrain, but all that I gained was a lot of exercise myself chasing them away from the road.)

With a cooperative goat, years of experience and just the right tools, this might be an easy task. For us, it was a nightmare. We took advantage of the rainy day (if you trim on a dry day you are supposed to "soak" the hooves first by having the goat stand in a basin of water - ours won't even walk on wet grass so that was never an option.) Stations, everyone - I am the trimmer, Emily is the goat-holder, and Megan is the feeder-of-animal-crackers. We started with Elliot. First problem - the goat will not hold still. (Imagine trying to do this to your dog.) Second, I have no idea what I am doing. I've read the books and watched a dozen you-tube videos, but nothing prepares you for taking razor sharp trimmers and chopping off chunks of animal feet. One book advised us to shave off thin pieces a little bit at a time, but I also saw a video where a woman literally sat on her goat and hacked off pieces roughly the size of my thumb (incidentally, what I was really hoping not to do - most documented "owner injuries" occur during hoof trimming; wonder why...) We tried singing to Elliot to calm him. No offense to "Sleeping Beauty" (that song always soothed my own infants!) but that was about as helpful as politely requesting his cooperation. Only when his eyes glazed over in a catatonic sugar-high from about a pound of animal crackers was I able to get anything accomplished.

With their "cloven hooves," each goat actually has 8 hooves you need to trim. (And "trimming" is not an accurate term, either - you trim toenails or cat claws - this is more like slicing off hunks of the foot.) The sides are carefully snipped until you see white (after white apparently comes spurting red blood, if you go too deep) while the back of the hoof is rubbery and very difficult to grip with the trimmers, like the sole of a sneaker. There is no gentle snipping here - this is where I finally got brave and started hacking away. Luckily - no bleeding (at least not from the goat...)

End result after 2 goats, 16 cloven hooves, about an hour and a small fortune in snacks: the goat boys' feet look nothing like the "after" photos in my favorite goat manual, but at least I see some improvement. Maybe next time will be better. However, I have also contacted a real estate agent in Tibet, in case we never get the hang of this...