Preventing Lameness Pre-Calving Essential to Later Foot Health

Preventing Digital Dermatitis infection pre-calving and minimising body condition score loss post-calving is a must to ensure optimum foot health in an animal’s first lactation and beyond.

Speaking at a recent AHDB Dairy Calf to Calving (C2C) meeting at Blackmarsh Farm, Sherborne, AHDB Dairy’s dairy senior scientist, Jenny Gibbons said now was a good time to think about controlling DD over the winter housing period.

She explained: "Digital Dermatitis is a painful condition and if you’ve got it in your heifers, you’ve got to control it. The stress of calving means that it will get worse and the heifers can be an infection pressure for the rest of the milking herd."

To control Digital Dermatitis, Dr Gibbons recommended implementing a control programme for in-calf heifers, which focused on picking up the early signs of the disease.

Dr Gibbons advised walking through in-calf heifers and visually assessing for heel lesions. Feet with early signs of the disease should then be cleaned, dried and treated with a topical spray. Infection pressure should also be reduced by minimising contact with slurry, by making sure stocking rates are correct to prevent slurry pooling.

“If you’ve got signs of Digital Dermatitis in the heifer, the most effective way to prevent new lesions is to run the heifers through a footbath. But make sure it’s deep enough to cover the whole hoof and clean enough so that the disinfectant is effective,” she explained – click here to read more.

In other news, a new article in The Professional Animal Scientist has highlighted the important role of following best practices in dairy and beef transportation.

The study identified particular aspects of transport as important for animal welfare, namely loading density, transport duration, trailer design and ventilation, driving, handling quality, road and environmental conditions and fitness of the animals.

"Every stakeholder has an expectation for fostering animal well-being," Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein, lead author of the study, said. "Producers, consignors, packers, and retailers alike want to improve animal treatment during transportation." – Read more.