Reducing Lameness - Minimise

Reducing Lameness - MINIMISE:

Episode 3: Reducing Lameness – Minimise

Help your farmer clients promptly identify and treat lameness more effectively.

Reduce pressure on cows, especially during early lactation with good management practice.

• Maximise time in the paddock – reduced time on concrete, increased time for eating and rest time = cow comfort
• Maintain races and entrances - drain muddy areas
• Calm, patient stockmanship - letting cows walk at their own pace and use baking gate sparingly
• Minimise BCS loss post calving by feeding cows well
• Early ID and prompt treatment will reduce future lameness risk
• Focus on your heifers/young cows - being part of a milking herd is new to them

AgriHealth Resources include:

Cow Hoof Model

Show farmers the differences between a healthy hoof and a hoof with damage to the corium. Explain the long-term impacts of lameness, and how to keep cows in the milking herd for longer.

On-farm poster for dairy farmers

This poster for farmers is designed to minimise, monitor and manage dairy cow lameness. Download here

Technical Bulletin N7 - Lameness management in NZ cows

Download here

AgriHealth Website

https://agrihealth.co.nz/products/lameness-in-cattle  

Contact your AgriHealth representative to access additional training and resources for reducing lameness.

Note DairyNZ also has some useful resources including:

• Lameness scoring system to identify lame cows
• Healthy Hoof app
• lameness cost calculator

_{¹Dairy NZ.Preventing and managing lameness guide https://www.dairynz.co.nz/animal/cow-health/lameness 2017}

²_{Fabian J,Laven R. A, Whay H R. The prevalence of lameness on New Zealand dairy farms:a comparison of farmer estimate and locomotion scoring The Vet Journal; 201(1): 318, 2014}

_{³Beggs, D.,E. Jongman, P. Hemsworth, and A. Fisher. 2019. Lame cows on Australian dairy farms: A comparison of farmer-identified lameness and formal lameness scoring, and the position of lame cows within the milking order. Journal of dairy science 102(2): 1522-1529}

_{⁴Thomas,H.J., et al. 2015. Evaluation of treatments for claw horn lesions in dairy cows in a randomised controlled trial. Journal of Dairy Science 98(7):4477-4486}