Recent heavy rainfall, along with forecast rain for the coming week, has left farm roadways muddy and wet. Where water cannot flow off roads, it sits on top and the conditions can often lead to small stones entering hooves in muck, and also can lead to increased risk of scald or dermatitis.

For both spring- and autumn-calving dairy herds, foot health is crucial. Cows suffering from sore feet can lose condition rapidly. For calved cows or in-calf cows, this can be very counterproductive and will have a severe negative impact on milk yield.

Prevention is better than cure

As with all ailments, avoiding lameness on the farm is more important than fire-fighting individual cow lameness. Foot-bathing cows is one useful way of helping to reduce hoof problems such as digital dermatitis, mortellero, foot-rot, etc. Using copper sulphate solution can also help to harden hooves, which may be beneficial when farm roadways are mucky and wet. There is also a wide range of other products on the market which are effective at reducing lameness.

Typically, there should be one litre of solution for every cow passing through the foot bath. For 50 cows passing through twice a day, that’s 100 litres. There needs to be a minimum of 10cm of solution in the foot bath when the last cow is passing through, so ensure that there is enough to last. The foot bath needs to be cleaned regularly to be effective.

At the first sign of a cow becoming lame, the issue should be investigated quickly before the problem becomes very severe. The foot should be lifted and inspected for bruises caused by stones, ulcers or signs of scald or dermatitis. Hoof trimming may be enough in some cases to solve the problem. When trimming the hoof, it is important to ensure that each claw is carrying the same load.

Each should hold 50% of the weight on each leg. Uneven weight distribution can cause ulcers on the claw carrying the most weight. Where this happens, it may be necessary to place a shoe on the opposite claw to take pressure off the ulcerated claw and allow it to heal.

However, not all hoof issues can be rectified by pairing. In some cases, veterinary assistance will be required. and an antibiotic course may also be prescribed, depending on the type of infection.