Sheep laminitis: symptoms, treatment – and how training can help

I want to share an experience that began a year ago, when the legs of my 9-year-old ewe, Pippi, suddenly collapsed, but let me begin by sharing a bit about my background.

My understanding of hooves comes from ten years of caring for the feet of my own small flock. Most of my practical knowledge, however, comes from the equine side: I have trimmed my horses’ hooves myself for many years, and I’ve learned a great deal about different hoof pathologies. The problems seen in horses’ hooves and sheep’s claws are surprisingly similar.

But while laminitis is widely recognised and well-documented in horses, it is far less understood in sheep.

Would you recognise the signs of laminitis in your sheep?

Acute phase of laminitis

When I walked into the sheep barn, I noticed that one sheep was struggling to walk. She was almost crawling over her front legs, dropping to her knees. When standing, she would sometimes arch her back and grind her teeth: a clear sign of pain. The veterinarian suspected abdominal or back-related pain. She gave a thiamine injection and pain medication, but the prognosis was, in her opinion, poor.

She told me that with sheep, the cause of symptoms often remains unknown, and asked me to call again if the ewe needed to be put down.

I immediately suspected the cause was the hay we had switched to a couple of months earlier because it contained more clover than our previous bales. Later I realized why this had become a problem: every day the sheep rushed to eat the clover first, trampling the rest into the bedding. I kept offering them more, and over time one sheep reacted to the excessive clover ratio compared to the rest of the forage.

Since the veterinarian couldn’t offer much help, I started searching solutions myself. I gave calcium and magnesium paste. We immediately changed the hay to one without clover.

The most severe pain began to ease during the first days, but new symptoms appeared: severe weakness in the hind legs. Her legs were like spaghetti when she walked, and urinating was difficult because the fetlocks collapsed in the wrong direction. She did not want to walk.

Over the next days, all four legs started to show heat and swelling, which I treated with cooling liniment. It helped but as soon as I stopped applying it, the heat and swelling returned.

Little by little the symptoms eased and the legs began to strengthen. Without knowing it at the time, I had done many of the right things… though I only later understood that the most likely cause of everything was laminitis. Yet it took time for that realization to fully settle in my mind.

Ongoing symptoms of laminitis

A couple of months later I noticed her hooves growing into a strange shape, the toes stretching forward. I began trimming very frequently to restore healthy balance.

Six months after the acute episode, I contacted a veterinarian again to take X-rays of the front legs because she still showed lameness. She had stepped into a hole earlier, and I wanted to rule out bone damage. The radiographs were clean, although a small area near the fetlock showed possible sprain-related change. But it did not explain all the symptoms.

However, the X-ray session unintentionally helped me treat her properly: while she was sedated, I washed and scrubbed her hooves thoroughly with a brush. The next day the lameness was clearly less. Because of the washing? I wondered.

Managing long-term symptoms with hoof trimming and care

This was the starting point of extremely careful hoof inspection and treatment: daily washing and the use of antibacterial products. Her lameness improved day by day.

Later I discovered that daily washing helped immediately because Pippi had wall separation. Dirt had packed into the gaps and created pressure between the wall and the internal structures. By removing the debris, the pressure – and therefore the pain – disappeared.

About seven months after the acute phase, a horizontal crack in her front hoof began to open and eventually a whole piece of hoof wall detached. I treated it continuously – keeping the hoof clean and trimming to avoid excess pressure on the damaged area.

At this point the entire cause of her symptoms became clear: she had been suffering from laminitis, and the lingering effects last until the hoof has fully regrown.

Inflammation can cause all kinds of structural damage to the hoof, and healing is slow.

Picture 1. During laminitis, the hoof often develops a distinct stress line – a horizontal growth ring that marks the period of inflammation. As the hoof grows down, this line moves toward the toe and may later become a crack or a weak area where the wall separates.

Picture 2. You can see a horizontal crack. This was about six months after the acute phase. The upper part of the hoof is new, healthy horn, while the section below the crack is the weakened horn from the laminitis episode.

Picture 3. Shows the same hoof a little later; you can see the crack gradually growing downward. I knew that at some point the damaged section would detach, so I did my best to trim the hoof in a way that would reduce pressure on the weakened area.

Picture 4. Shows the sole side, where you can clearly see the outer edge of the hoof wall separating. Thankfully, the sheep barely showed any lameness during this detachment phase.

Picture 5. When a loosening hoof wall is still attached but dirt can enter the gap, it creates an ideal environment for bacteria and can make the separation worse. By packing the gap with Red Horse Artimud, I was able to block debris from entering, prevent infection, and support the healthy wall as it grew down.

Picture 6. & 7 Here you can see a large difference in length between the two sides. One side is very short because a large piece of the damaged wall recently broke off, while the opposite side is still made of old laminitic horn that has not yet fully outgrown. This longer side must not be trimmed shorter than the level of the sole, because removing it too early would overload the recovering laminae and risk a new separation.

If the toe is trimmed too short, all the weight and leverage shifts directly onto the new hoof wall that is still forming. The old damaged wall is still providing some support, and removing it too early puts too much strain on the recovering laminae, increasing the risk of a new separation.

So why we continued treatment?

Because we were able to.

When Pippi came to us as a young sheep, she was extremely difficult to handle because she was afraid of all care procedures. With reward-based training and gradual desensitization, we had built a strong bond of trust over the years and this made it possible to treat her throughout the illness.

If a sheep is terrified of restraint and human touch, medical care becomes very diffucult without causing more harm as the animal struggles. Causing stress to a sick animal is never a good thing.

Pippi has been trained to stand tied and have her legs handled using positive reinforcement, meaning that the desired behaviour is rewarded with food. Here I am brushing the hoof clean while she eats. Keeping her foot up is worthwhile for her, because she receives treats at the same time. During the first training sessions I couldn’t even touch her leg, let alone lift it up or perform any treatments. Repeated sessions and positive experiences gradually changed her emotional state, and with that, her behaviour.

How did training help with treatment?

• Pippi was used to wearing a halter and being tied, and she associated these experiences with positive things because she had been rewarded for standing calmly. This made it easy to give her calcium and magnesium pastes orally and examine her.
• She had been taught to lead on a halter, so yielding to pressure was familiar work. This allowed me to walk her safely without sudden movements her legs wouldn’t have tolerated.
• She was used to having her legs handled, which made applying liniment daily easy.

Instead of losing my patience during difficult times, the trust between me and my sheep grew stronger.

Can you fully heal laminitis?

Eleven months after the acute phase, the hooves have almost fully regrown. There are no signs of inflammation, and the hooves are gradually returning to normal.

Picture 1. The right hoof was able to grow without any cracks or wall separation, so after a year it has returned to a normal alignment and the new horn is strong and healthy.

Picture 2. The inner toe still has a small hollow area that can collect dirt easily, while the outer toe has fully recovered and the wall is tightly attached to the internal structures.

Picture 3. In the side view of the left claw, you can clearly see the grey area on the toe that is still laminitis-damaged horn, and a different colour compared to the healthy part of the hoof.

Picture 4. The sole view shows the same thing that is visible from the outside: there is still a fragile and misshapen area on the toe.

Picture 5. In this hoof both claws are the same length, but the inner claw (right) grows down in a more curved angle. This is the side where a large piece of the wall broke off. The sudden loss of support changed the weight distribution. The outer claw took most of the load, while the inner claw grew more freely, resulting in a curved growth line.This is temporary and will straighten as the new wall continues to grow down and the hoof regains full balance.

From this experience I gained a much deeper understanding of hoof health. Hoof care in sheep is often overlooked. Hooves are frequently left to grow far too long between trims, which puts strain on joints and tendons and causes other problems. I believe this often happens because hoof trimming is stressful and difficult for both the human and the sheep – so it gets postponed until it absolutely must be done. In the worst case, this leads to arthritis and inflammation.

Do we recognise acute laminitis in sheep?

I don’t think we do.

I have often seen people ask in discussion groups why a sheep is eating on its knees. While gathering information about the many ways laminitis can present, this behaviour was mentioned repeatedly. When a sheep’s hooves are painful, it may start eating on its knees to reduce pressure on them.

One of Pippi’s symptoms was that she scratched under her belly with a hind foot. I don’t know the exact reason – whether the discomfort was truly in her abdomen or if it originated in the hoof, and she tried to relieve it by using her belly as a place to scratch.

Many different conditions causes similar symptoms, which makes recognition difficult. We had four different veterinarians over a period of six months, and I asked every single one for their opinion about this sheep. None of them recognised the signs or effects of laminitis.

If I had known from the beginning that the problem was in the hooves, I would have focused on cooling the hooves themselves. That was probably the only treatment we didn’t use – everything else we did was actually correct.

I wrote this article in the hope that someone else will recognise these signs after reading it, and that their sheep will receive the right treatment immediately.

Do you want to care for your sheep in the least stressful way possible?

My online course is made for sheep owners who want to build trust, understand their sheep’s behaviour, and shape it through training.

Course includes:

• Understanding sheep emotions
• How to choose and use treats
• Halter training
• Leading training
• Stanging behaviour
• Leg handling and lifting