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Prevention of lameness is based around having good roadways and good hygiene in yards and sheds, along with regular foot bathing.
After so much rain, roadways are soaked and in many cases cows are walking through mud to get to and from paddocks. That’s where grazing is continuing.
Soft hooves and long walks
Soft hooves and long walks are a recipe for lameness, with a likely increase in the amount of sole ulcers and injuries due to walking on sharp stones.
In recent years, mobility scoring has been used as a tool to help identify cows in the early stages of lameness, before they become very lame.
Mobility scoring ranks cows on a scale of 0 to 3, with 0 being no lameness and 3 being very lame.
The purpose of mobility scoring is to identify the 1s and 2s. Cows with a score of 1 can either be lifted or set aside for further monitoring.
Cows with a score of 2 should be hoof-pared to identify the problem.
In most cases, the issues are caused by an injury or hurt such as bruising or white line disease. It’s a useful tool, particularly on larger farms where there are more employees.
Hoof paring
Getting a hoof-parer is difficult at the moment, as they are all busy with a lot of work on.
On farms with big problems with lameness, you need to set aside one day every week where the problem cows will be hoof-pared, whether that is one cow or 10 cows.
Waiting to get a big number together before calling a hoof-parer is bad practice.
When cows are inside, weekly foot-bathing is necessary to clean and disinfect the hoof and prevent bacterial infections.
Products such as formalin and copper sulphate, along with branded disinfectants, are all useful.
The key thing is to wash the feet. Some farmers in Denmark only use clean water in the bath.
Hoof paring and lameness prevention will be discussed at Dairy Day in Punchestown on Tuesday 19 November.
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