The mechanical damage may come from dried pasture stubble or frozen mud spikes. You should be especially careful during the first two weeks after fall weaning when calves are coming from dried pastures, and during the first two weeks after the temperature drops below freezing following a wet period. Footrot can be easily and successfully treated. To properly diagnose footrot, pick up the foot and examine the soft tissue between the toes. In footrot cases, the soft tissue between the toes will be swollen and smell very bad.
Topical medications are of very little value.
Footrot seldom affects only a few animals in a pen. You must be on guard for other cases to develop from the same set of cattle. If it appears a substantial number of animals in a pen might become affected, mass medication of the remaining animals in the pen with sulfa and tetracycline in the feed for five days is worth your consideration. Medicating all the animals through the feed will often stop an outbreak of footrot within 24 hours. It is difficult to prevent footrot.