Chapters 10.6

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Suggested citation for this chapter.

Muir,M. (2022) Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening for Hoof Care, The Encyclopedia for Small Scale Farmers. Editor, M.N. Raizada, University of Guelph, Canada. http://www.farmpedia.org

Hoof Health

Hoof health is an important aspect of caring for livestock. Many articles regarding hoof care and health mention how overall foot health and lameness are serious issues with cattle (dairy especially) and can be very costly to farmers. Common causes of foot lameness often involve the hoof and include corns, hoof cracks, and laminitis (OMAFRA, 2012). Other hoof problems include digital or interdigital dermatitis (polymicrobial disease, includes contagious bacteria and lesions), heel horn erosions, sole or white line hemorrhages, and sole ulcers (Buch, Sørensen, & Lassen, 2011). Lameness causes significant loss worldwide due to reduced production, delayed conception, and cow losses (OMAFRA, 2008) which can be assumed to be even more prevalent with smallholders due to the lack of veterinary services and medicines available. Improving hoof health would reduce economic impacts on farmers as well as improve animal quality of life (Krpálková, Cabrera, & Zavadilová, 2019). Since hoof disorders are a major welfare problem in dairy farming and result in considerable costs to farmers (Häggman & Juga, 2013), it is important to keep livestock foot health in order. Being the third most costly disease in dairy farming (after mastitis and infertility) (Buch, Sørensen, & Lassen, 2011), hoof health could have a detrimental impact on smallholder farmers.

Genetic selection is the best way to prevent hoof diseases (Häggman & Juga, 2013), but smallholder farmers do not have access to science nor veterinary services compared to commercial farmers. For example, 37.2% of respondents in a South African study ranked poor veterinary services as their most prevalent issue in livestock farming (Nkonki-Mandleni, Ogunkoya, & Omotayo, 2019). Of the 28% of farmers in a Kenyan study who utilized government veterinary services, more than half were solely for livestock vaccinations (Heffernan & Misturelli, 2000). Finding an alternative way to care for livestock hooves would help a smallholder farmer save money from hoof-related special veterinary services, cow losses, and the numerous issues listed above.

Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening

Crisco was invented in 1911 and was the first shortening product made of plant-based oils and oil seeds (Crisco.com) to replace animal lard and other fats and oils that were commonly being used for cooking and baking. Although Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening’s sole intention is for cooking/baking, it has unexpectedly been shown to help hoof health. The hope is that Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening can help heal cracks, promote healthy growth, and retain moisture in livestock hooves to prevent some or all of the common issues previously stated. Hot and dry conditions will dry out hooves fast (Albert, 1974), leaving smallholder farmers in Africa with a significant challenge. Before fancy hoof dressings and medicines “were on the market, horsemen simply applied melted pork fat to the hoof head, horn wall, and heels to stimulate horn growth and add moisture” (Albert, 1974). A common problem that the horsemen had to be wary of with these indigenous practices was the salt content as fats with high sodium levels would dry out the hooves even more (Albert, 1974), but luckily Crisco has no sodium in its shortening (Crisco.com). It a safer alternative. Another issue with using fat was that it needed to be kept cold and monitored as to not be rancid (Albert, 1974), as meat can easily become. Crisco shortening is a vegan alternative to a product also used in cooking known as lard, which is pork fat; exactly what the horsemen used to use (Albert, 1974). Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening does not need to be refrigerated, unlike animal products, making it a safer and easier vegan alternative.

Hoof care is similar to that of nails on humans (Albert, 1974), and using Vaseline, Crisco, and/or other oils as nail care is known to protect nail moisture in the winter, as well as to help strengthen thin nails (Howes-Trammel, Bryant, & Nix, 2012). Since most of the moisture needed in healthy and well-protected hooves can come from within (Loch, 1999), using the Crisco as a sealant like Vaseline to human skin can be beneficial. When a hoof is cracked, “dressing such as sweet oil or linseed oil can be applied to prevent further moisture evaporation” (Albert, 1974), similar to how Crisco functions. These numerous examples provide evidence that Crisco holds potential for smallholder farmers to provide hoof care for their livestock.

Cost-Benefit Evaluation

On Indiamart.com, Crisco sells for ₹100 (rupees) per 1 kg container, which is $1.33 in U.S. dollars. With a long shelf life of 2 years (Crisco.com), a smallholder farmer could order the vegetable shortening in bulk without a problem and have a supply for a long time and save on shipping costs, but ultimately a local supplier would be helpful. The benefits of avoiding the numerous health issues involved with hooves would be worth a lot to a smallholder farmer, especially if it can avoid any veterinary costs or livestock deaths. After the Crisco is emptied, the leftover pails can also be reused as water pails, feeding bins, or for other purposes.

How To Use It

Like other moisture dressings for hooves, including animal fat, Crisco can be massaged into the corium and the sole as well as on the hoof wall (Loch, 1999) (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Cow Hoof Diagram. Source: Cornell University

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The dressing aids in maintain the sole in a pliable form and eliminates dead tissue, helping heal the hoof. “Massaging the coronet also stimulates growth of a healthy new hoof wall” (Loch, 1999). Most hoof care videos concern horses rather than cattle, but the application process is the same. Using a brush to spread and rub in the shortening will cover the hoof, as shown in this video: https://youtu.be/9JdI9vu6ujM. In this video, a woman dips a large paint brush into her hoof dressing and glazes it over her horse’s hoof – simple but effective.

Other Options

Since it is difficult to find studies involving smallholder farmers using Crisco on their livestock’s hooves, it is difficult to report its efficacy. Crisco is a baking product that is meant to mimic lard, which was used in the past (Albert, 1974), but it was not designed for this purpose and nowhere on their website has Crisco recommended it for livestock. Other options would be true hoof oils and dressings, but they are much more expensive and difficult for smallholder farmers to access. On Indiamart.com, there is no hoof dressing available; the price in Canada is between $40.00 and $100.00 on Amazon.ca. Other vegetable oils and fatty products would most likely function in the same manner and might be more readily available and cost-effective.

Conclusion

Overall, the low cost of Crisco All-Vegetable Shortening found on Indiamart.com is a cost-effective, sustainable, and simple idea for smallholder farmers to care for their livestock’s hooves. As done in the past with lard (Albert, 1974), it is an indigenous practice that was used before the creation of “true” hoof dressings developed by profit-based companies. Although many of the common hoof problems among livestock, such as digital or interdigital dermatitis, heel horn erosions, sole or white line hemorrhages, and sole ulcers (Buch, Sørensen, & Lassen, 2011), will not be fixed by Crisco, the dryness, flaking, and cracks that are common in hooves (OMAFRA, 2012) can be healed, perhaps preventing more serious issues in the future.

References

1. Häggman, J., & Juga, J. (2013). Genetic parameters for hoof disorders and feet and leg conformation traits in Finnish Holstein cows. Journal of Dairy Science, 96(5), 3319–3325. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2012-6334

2. Buch, L. H., Sørensen, A. C., Lassen, J., Berg, P., Eriksson, J.-Å., Jakobsen, J. H., & Sørensen, M. K. (2011). Hygiene-related and feed-related hoof diseases show different patterns of genetic correlations to clinical mastitis and female fertility. Journal of Dairy Science, 94(3), 1540–1551. https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2010-3137

3. Krpálková, L., Cabrera, V. E., Zavadilová, L., & Štípková, M. (2019). The importance of Hoof health in dairy production. Czech Journal of Animal Science, 64(3), 107–117. https://doi.org/10.17221/27/2018-cjas

4. Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA, 2012). Horse Foot Health. Retrieved September 29, 2021, from http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/horses/facts/12-019.htm.

5. Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA, 2021). Healthier Hooves. Retrieved September 29, 2021, from http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/livestock/dairy/facts/healthyhooves.htm.

6. Heffernan, C., & Misturelli, F. (2002). The Delivery of Veterinary Services to the Poor: Preliminary findings from Kenya. Retrieved from https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/57a08d2aed915d3cfd001868/R7359a.pdf

7. Nkonki-Mandleni, B., Ogunkoya, F.T., Omotayo, A.O. (2019) Socioeconomic factors influencing livestock production among smallholder farmers in the Free State Province of South Africa. Int. J. Entrep. 23, 1–17.

8. Crisco (2021). Retrieved September 29, 2021, from https://crisco.com/.

9. Albert, W. W. (1974). Foot and health care of horses. 1103. Illinois. University at Urbana Champaign. Cooperative Extension Service in Agriculture and Home Economics. Circular 1103.

10. https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/32614/foothealthcareof1103albe.pdf?sequence=2

11. Nix, D. P., & Bryant, R. A. (2016). Chapter 15: Foot and Nail Care. In Acute & chronic wounds current management concepts (4th ed., pp. 249–250), Elsevier.

12. Wayne, L. (1999). Care of Your Horse's Feet (pp. 1–4). MU Extension. https://extension.missouri.edu/media/wysiwyg/Extensiondata/Pub/pdf/agguides/ansci/g02839.pdf

13. Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine (2020, March 11). Foot health. Retrieved December 1, 2021, from https://www.vet.cornell.edu/animal-health-diagnostic-center/programs/nyschap/modules-documents/foot-health.