Wet winter ground is working against sheep's feet every day it lasts. Mud softens the skin between the toes, packed earth and slurry sit in the cleft of the hoof, and the bacteria that trouble sheep's feet thrive in exactly the warm, wet, airless conditions a winter field provides. Against that, the keeper's defense is not a product but a rhythm: one weekly round of foot checks, done as a complete set, that catches trouble at the first sheep rather than the tenth.
Start With the Limp Watch
Begin before a single foot is lifted, by watching the whole flock move and reading it for limps. Bring the sheep through a gate or along a fence line at a walk and read them as a group: the sheep hanging back, the one favoring a corner of a foot, the one grazing on its knees to spare its front feet, the one that was sound last week and is short this week. Sheep hide lameness inside a moving flock remarkably well, so watch the edges and the stragglers, where the lame ones travel. Any sheep flagged by the watch goes on the list for a hands-on look that same round, not next week, because a foot problem in winter mud rarely improves for being waited on, and the sheep you catch at a limp is cheaper to help, in every sense, than the sheep you catch lying down.
Foot by Foot: Skin, Smell, Trim
Work through the sheep foot by foot, and read the skin between the toes on every foot, not just the lame one. Part the toes and look at the skin in the cleft: healthy skin there is pale and dry-looking even in a wet season, while reddened, raw, or whitened soft skin, or skin with a sore broken surface, is a finding to note against that sheep. Check the smell of each foot as it is lifted, because a foul smell from a foot is a sign in its own right, the kind of sour, rotten note that tells you trouble is established in that foot even before the skin shows much. Keep trimming up as part of the same round, paring back overgrown horn that folds over and traps mud against the skin, since a neglected hoof builds its own wet pocket in any weather. Where the flock's routine uses one, run the sheep through a footbath as part of the weekly round, on the way out of the handling pen, so the husbandry steps travel together and none depends on a separate muster. Note each finding against its sheep as you go, in the Care Teams list the flock works from, because next week's round starts from this week's record.
When the Round Hands Over to the Vet
The weekly check has an honest edge. A single sheep slightly short, with clean skin and no smell, earns a note and a recheck at the next round. Established lameness, a foot with broken skin and that foul smell together, several sheep flagging lame in the same week, or signs spreading through the flock despite the routine are where the round hands over: those go to a vet, who can judge what is driving the pattern and what the flock needs beyond husbandry. Trying stronger home measures week after week while a flock problem spreads is how a manageable winter becomes a season of lame sheep, and the check exists precisely to make the call early, while it is still a call about a few sheep.
A weekly round across a whole flock is also more than one pair of hands and one memory, so the findings need a home. Marked in the Care Teams diary on KinsLe, each flock's foot findings build a winter picture rather than scattered memory.