Lameness is one of the dairy industry’s most persistent health challenges. While technology has improved the industry’s ability to detect lame cows earlier, Abbie Goldenberg, Director of Sales and Marketing at Farm Inc., says producers shouldn’t lose sight of an even more important goal: preventing those cases from happening in the first place.
“I’ve always said that a cow needs a solid foundation in order to function for a producer to the best of her ability,” Goldenberg says. “That means all-around health, but that starts from the ground up. If she’s not as mobile as we would like her to be, then she’s going to be lacking in all other areas.”
Looking Beyond Treatment
Many producers gauge the impact of lameness by the number of cows requiring treatment, but Goldenberg believes that measure misses the bigger picture.
“I don’t believe that it captures the full story,” she says. “The objective truly is to prevent it, to keep most problems at bay.”
While injuries will always occur occasionally, she says management practices should focus on reducing routine hoof health problems before they become costly cases.
“As we are managing our hoof baths more effectively, we should be mitigating existing or limiting events,” she explains.
Even when automated monitoring systems identify lame cows sooner, the damage has often already begun.
“If you have collars or ear tags and then go back and correlate a case of lameness, you’re going to see that rumination’s been down, her activity levels have probably been off,” Goldenberg says. “That affects reproduction, that affects production, everything.”
Build a Better Hoof Bath
A successful hoof bath program starts with proper design and maintenance.
Aerica Bjurstrom, regional dairy educator with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, recommends hoof baths be at least 10 feet long so each hoof enters the solution twice. Solution depth should remain at least four inches to ensure the dewclaws are submerged.
Just as important is knowing when to replace the solution.
“The hoof bath solution should be changed after 150 to 350 cows pass through,” Bjurstrom says. “If cows have cleaner hooves and legs, the solution can last for 300 to 350 cows. However, dirtier hooves require more frequent changes.”
Tracking daily cow traffic through the hoof bath can help determine when fresh solution is needed. On non-treatment days, Bjurstrom recommends allowing cows to bypass the medicated bath or use a simple chlorinated or soapy bath to help maintain hoof cleanliness.
She also stresses that treatment frequency should match herd conditions.
“During a DD outbreak, start with three hoof bath treatments per week,” Bjurstrom says. “If the condition does not improve, increase frequency to four or five times weekly. For maintenance, a schedule such as Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday or Monday-Wednesday-Friday can be effective.”
Consistency Matters
Hoof baths are one of the most common management tools on a dairy, but they often don’t receive the same level of attention as other herd health practices. Yet when managed correctly, they remain one of the best defenses against digital dermatitis (DD) and other hoof health challenges that contribute to lameness.
“There’s so much variability across the board, regardless of size, but regionally as well, of how people manage their hoof baths,” she says.
Part of that inconsistency comes from the task itself.
“It’s really not a sexy hot topic that people want to talk about,” Goldenberg says. “Who really wants that job? Dealing with the chemicals that go into the baths is just gross. It’s not a fun job to do.”
Even small mistakes during mixing can reduce effectiveness.
“It is so easy to affect the efficacy of whatever product you are using by not mixing it correctly,” she says. “You could accidentally make it too strong and burn cows’ hooves. You could make it too weak and not really see any difference at all.”
Goldenberg notes that innovations are becoming available for farms of every size.
“No farm is too small or too big for innovation of any type,” she says. “It may not look the same. Somebody milking 125 cows in Wisconsin may use different technology than somebody milking 15,000 cows, but there’s still opportunity.”
Evaluating the Return
Like many preventative management practices, hoof health investments can be difficult to value because success often means avoiding problems rather than measuring visible improvements.
Goldenberg encourages producers to periodically review trimming records and herd performance rather than accepting historical levels of lameness as normal.
“It’s a really good time to re-evaluate and see where you stand and see where you can improve,” she says. “Not saying that every farm can improve in that area, but it’s worth re-evaluating.”
She also points out that labor savings often become one of the biggest returns on investment.
“The vast majority of farmers enjoy having less severe cases, but where they’re really talking us up is the labor saving, the consistency and the efficiency of it,” she says. “It’s allowing somebody to have a chore they wouldn’t have had and focus their time somewhere else.”
Boring, But Effective
For all the technology available today, Goldenberg says successful hoof health still comes back to one simple idea:
“Prevention is boring, but it works,” she says.
While preventative management may not generate excitement, she says consistency is what ultimately keeps cows healthier and more productive.
“When you tell a dairyman they’re not going to have to hand mix a bath, dump it out, refill it halfway through a milking session and stay on top of it, it sparks their excitement,” Goldenberg says. “The best thing about it is that you get to a point where you forget you even have a hoof bath because it just takes care of itself.”
