Look North For Healthy Hooves

Nordic countries sit on the world’s largest hoof health database and are keen to share the genetic benefits.

Major advances in dairy cow lameness can be made through daughter proven genetic indexing from around half a million cow evaluations each year, according to breeding companies based in the region.

Of these, 300,000 come from Denmark, Sweden and Finland and are incorporated in the Nordic Cattle Genetic Evaluation.

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History was made in 2011 when hoof health was included in the Nordic Total Merit index.

This was the first time overall breeding goals catered for hoof health.

Viking Genetics says that, while the Dutch have an index incorporating hoof information, theirs is solely based on hoof health observations and hoof health genetics remains “special” to Scandinavia.

And while hoof information can inform breeding strategies for tomorrow’s herd, experts are keen to stress the information can be used for responsive management decisions.

Large data sets are important as hoof health traits, like heritability traits, are “quite low”, according to Tor Sletmoen, managing director of Geno.

“We require high daughter numbers in Norway before we have proven hoof health improvement,” he told TheDairySite. “A key difference in Norwegian Reds is they use twice as many proven daughters than Viking Reds.”

Cows are under greater scrutiny in Scandinavia, with veterinarians doing a huge share of cow treatments. Around 40 per cent of Norwegian cows are milked by robots and all cows have had a health card since the 1970s.

“Vets must be called for all cow treatments and the card records all ailments and treatments,” said Mr Sletmoen.

“Health card systems allow us to assess how bulls have done.” read more