Hooves need seeing to. There’s a fair bit of literature on the subject. That’s no exaggeration. There’s so much online and in books about how sheep’s feet should be trimmed. Hoof-care is, however, a perfect example of what academics call tacit knowledge (dissertations have been written about it). I’m not sure why this knowledge is tacit, perhaps it’s really just unassuming. If you know it, you just do it; if you don’t, you have no idea. To be honest, trimming the external parts of the sheep’s hooves isn’t hard. The difficulty in explaining exactly how it works probably stems from the fact that you need to be holding an actual hoof when you learn. All these books, sites, and theses are like great neurotic compensations for the lack of physical contact. Another key to the skill is mistakes. I think I’ve slithered around in the ditches on both sides of hoof trimming. One is not trimming at all. I noticed, a few weeks into summer, that a few of the ewes were limping a little. Their hooves were seriously overgrown. Not nice, but at least now I know why they need trimming. The other mistake was to cut too much off. One time, half a hoof pad went along for the ride. The poor sheep bled and limped, but it was OK in the end, and now I know exactly where the line between hoof and pad is.