Randomized clinical trial investigating the effect of exercise and standing on concrete prior to first calving on time to first lameness event in dairy heifers

This controlled clinical trial investigated if an inter-vention immediately before the first calving event could reduce lameness incidence in pasture-based dairy heif-ers. Seven hundred ninety heifers across 6 farms in the Waikato region of New Zealand were randomly enrolled into treatment or control groups at a ratio of 1:1. The treatment consisted of heifers walking approximately 1 km from pasture along the farm race, standing on concrete for one hour, and then walking back to their paddock. This occurred once a day, 5 times a week, for 5 wk before calving. The control heifers were managed solely at pasture before calving. Just before calving, both groups were bought together and managed as one group for the remainder of the study. Heifers were fol-lowed for up to 28 wk, with fortnightly lameness scores collected to identify animals with a lameness score of >= 2 (lameness score 0-3). Lameness could also be diag-nosed by the farmers, who had no formal lameness scor-ing training. The primary outcome of interest was time to first lame event. Secondary outcomes included milk solid production, change in body condition score during early lactation, time from onset of breeding season until conception, feasibility of the regimen and change in sole soft tissue thickness and profile. From a total of 782 heifers that had data collected on the outcomes, 102 (13.0%) individual first lameness events were recorded, 53 in heifers in the treatment group and 49 in control heifers. Of those 102 lameness events, 51 were first diagnosed by farmers. No apparent differences were detected in the hazard rate for time to first lame event between heifers in the 2 treatment groups. Treatment heifers had a 1.12 times hazard rate (95% confidence interval: 0.65-1.95) of a lame event compared with control heifers. No associations were identified between heifers in the 2 groups for any of the secondary out-come measures. However, farmers did report that the intervention was practical and easy to implement. It is possible that the intervention did not challenge the hoof enough, and that longer duration and distances walked may have resulted in a different outcome. Although no improvement in lameness outcomes were reported, no negative effects during and after the intervention were noted in animals in the intervention group. Further research into the area of lameness prevention is needed as there are few evidence-based solutions available to reduce lameness incidence in pasture-based systems.