Dealing with dairy cow lameness – applying knowledge on farm

Lameness in dairy cows is a disease of high production, and – as the average output of the national herd has increased – has become a major factor affecting the health, welfare and productivity of cows under our care.

This increase has prompted excellent research into cattle lameness over the past 10 years, greatly enhancing our knowledge and understanding in this field, but we have not necessarily seen the fruits of this work in terms of an improvement in mobility on the ground, with the most recent large-scale assessment showing 32% score two and three cows across a group of farms in north-west England (Atkinson, 2013).

This suggests, as a profession, we vets are not successful in using our knowledge and understanding to provide effective solutions for our farmers. This article will briefly review these topics and the ways in which we can seek to drive real change.

Mobility scoring

Since the development of the DairyCo mobility score about 10 years ago, the four-point system has become universally accepted across the UK, but only a minority of dairies are using a routine mobility score as part of their lameness management programme.

To make this process cost effective, many practices are employing paraprofessional staff to carry out mobility scores, which is a great way to get the system on farms at relatively low cost. However, it must be followed up with a good quality reporting and analysis service to make use of the data, otherwise clients will quickly become disillusioned.

A routine mobility score can be valuable for two reasons:

• Rapid identification of lame cows to enable early, effective treatment to be implemented. The value of this benefit rises as scoring is carried out more often.
• Monitoring and reporting of mobility performance and identification of trends. This will usually require the use of a computer recording and analysis tool.

You should develop a simple and reproducible way of displaying results to ensure speed of reporting and a consistent delivery to the client.

Digital dermatitis control

Huge efforts have been made to identify the cause of digital dermatitis (DD) and, while the details of the pathogenesis are yet to be fully elucidated, we can be confident of the involvement of Treponema spirochaetes and, more importantly, a correctly applied programme of biocidal footbathing, identification and treatment of clinically affected cows, and culling of persistent offenders, can lead to acceptable levels of control.

So, why is DD still such a big problem in the UK dairy herd?

• Failure to footbath often enough – in the wrong system, footbathing can be a real chore, so if we want to see it done regularly, we must encourage farmers to build a footbath into their setup in such a way it can be used with minimal stress to cows and staff alike.
• Inappropriate footbathing – attention to detail is key here, both in the design and placement of the footbath, and in the protocols used to ensure cows are bathed correctly through an appropriate solution. Work done in our practice revealed huge variation between the volume and concentration farmers thought they were using and the actual figures. Before the DD investigation, measure the footbath and ask the farmer to show you how he or she prepares the solution.
• Reservoir of infection – with chronic Mortellaro 4 lesions seemingly important in the epidemiology of this disease, it is critical the control programme is applied to all groups of susceptible animals, including dry cows and heifers. Again, this needs to be made as easy as possible, either by having a suitable handling setup for running other groups through the milkers bath (before the rest of the herd) or by installing separate systems in the dry cow or heifer housing.

A DD control plan is a crucial component of any lameness control plan and should be discussed at some level, even when the farmer does not perceive DD to be the main problem. Improvements can often be simple and cost-effective, yet still lead to tangible improvements in cow health and welfare.

Claw horn lesions

After a long period of relative uncertainty, we now have good evidence for the role of yield and body condition score (BCS) loss in the pathogenesis of claw horn lesions, such as sole ulcers and white line disease (Randall et al, 2015), and this should be informing our discussions to generate real change on the farm.

The key messages to relay to farmers are cows with a BCS less than 2.5 and those losing the most weight after calving were at greatest risk of having a new lameness event and failing to recover once lame. This reinforces the need for a holistic approach to cow health issues and vets must take the lead to ensure BCS monitoring is included when discussing lameness with clients, especially in higher yielding herds with an increased incidence of sole ulcers.

Risk assessments and discussions on routine trimming and cow comfort are still important, but we need to involve nutritional advisors and minimise BCS loss after calving to maintain a healthier and, ultimately, more profitable herd.

Early effective treatment

After working with farmers and foot trimmers to tackle lameness, the author is convinced the most important thing in improving the mobility of dairy cows is a skilled stockperson who cannot stand the sight of a lame cow and will work hard to ensure it is treated as quickly as possible.

While this attitude is not present in everyone, vets have a pivotal role to play in addressing some of the barriers to early effective treatment and ensuring clients keep this element of control at the forefront of their thinking.

Some of the key barriers to successful early effective treatment include:

• Lack of time or appropriate equipment – a lame cow is far more likely to receive the proper attention on a farm where there is a purpose-built foot crush in a permanent location, where cows can easily be shed out of the herd and put in for trimming. A good stock of sharp knives, protective clothing and blocks should also be on hand. On larger farms with more staff, it is important to make one person specifically responsible for hoof health and set aside specific time for them to perform these tasks, otherwise they risk being caught up in other daily work, leading to a backlog. Using an outside foot trimmer on a routine basis can help with this, but the responsibility for identifying and treating lame cows still lies with the farm staff.
• Lack of training/confidence in trimming – enthusiasm for treating lame cows is helped enormously by the belief interventions will be beneficial, and training and education of farm staff is key in this. A wide range of courses are available to teach these skills and the 1-2-1 skills check component of the DairyCo healthy feet programme is an extremely useful tool in improving the outcomes for lame cows on farm. As there is nobody else watching, the farmer/herdsperson can be completely open about any concerns or weaknesses they may have.
• Failure to rapidly identify lame cows – this is another key element with plenty of evidence, suggesting early identification of cows with impaired mobility means lesions are less severe when treated and resolution is both faster and more sustained. It has also been found a regular mobility scoring programme will detect and treat these cows much quicker than the usual daily observation of a farmer. This is due to the objective nature of the scoring process and the need to look at every cow while asking “is this cow lame?”

Conclusions

Due to the hard work of a number of research agencies, we have gained a huge amount of knowledge and evidence regarding cattle lameness and we, as vets, have the tools we need to help our clients translate this knowledge into meaningful progress, both in the performance of their business and in the welfare of their cows.

It is crucial we take responsibility for mobility on our farms and develop a targeted management programme for each individual herd so we can identify areas for improvement and bring our knowledge to bear in the most effective way possible.