Early detection and effective treatment of lameness in dairy cattle - removing the barriers to implementation?

A recent survey in the UK indicated foot health may be improving, but severe lameness in dairy cows is still high (Collins 2016). Two major risk factors for severe lameness are delays to treatment and ineffective treatment (Bell and others 2009). There may be many factors contributing to delays to treatment, but most farms can achieve improvements by disciplined use of lameness scoring (Groenevelt and others 2014). Improved sensitivity of lameness detection will only be successful if trimming skills and treatment protocols are optimised, yet there is a sparsity of published evidence on this subject (Potterton and others 2012). Recent work has indicated effective can be relatively simple if implemented early (Thomas and others 2015). However, it is easy to overwhelm foot trimming capacity on modern dairy farms making the use of professional foot trimming services essential for many. Inevitably preventative strategies are required to make foot health programmes sustainable, and using fortnightly lameness scores with lesion analysis can inform producers on the efficacy of control. Ultimately automated systems will allow continuous monitoring of foot health and provide a better means of identifying animals at risk of lameness or requiring early intervention.