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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.
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 ones and twos. Cows with a score of 1 can either be lifted or set aside for further monitoring.
Hoof-paring
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.
Getting a hoof-parer is difficult at the moment, as they are all busy with a lot of work on.
On farms with big lameness problems, you need to set aside one day every week or fortnight 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.
Body condition scoring, mobility scoring and assessing claw health will all be discussed at Dairy Day in Punchestown on Thursday 23 November.
Dairy management: avoiding shoulder and back pain while milking
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