Assessing the welfare impact of foot disorders in dairy cattle by a modeling approach

Abstract

Foot disorders are the main cause of dairy cow lameness and are considered to have a major impact on the welfare of dairy cattle. This study adopts a modeling approach, using a dynamic stochastic model, to provide more insight into the welfare impact of different types of foot disorders, both clinical and subclinical. The impact of specific foot disorders on welfare was assessed by simulating the incidence and duration of foot disorders and the pain associated with them. Pain assessment was based on locomotion scores, with underlying knowledge obtained from scientific literature and experts. The results demonstrated the seriousness of the welfare impact of foot disorders. The negative welfare impact was measured on a scale from 0 to 60, where the maximum outcome represents a cow having very severe pain during the whole year. On average, each cow achieves a welfare impact score of 12, which is 20% of the maximum welfare impact score. This welfare score equals having severe pain for a period of 3 months, indicating a serious impact on welfare. On average, digital dermatitis impacts most on welfare, which is caused by a high incidence of the painful clinical stage, followed by sole hemorrhages (SoH) and interdigital dermatitis and heel horn erosion (IDHE). The combination of a high incidence and long duration of SoH and IDHE causes this relatively high welfare impact of foot disorders that occur mostly subclinically. On average, over 1 year, 46% of the welfare impact due to foot disorders is caused by clinical foot disorders. The fact that subclinical foot disorders contribute more or less equally to the effects on welfare as clinical ones, indicates that farmers may readily underestimate the welfare impact by a factor two. Modeling welfare impact at cow level, individual cases of foot disorders, stresses the importance of pain intensity, indicating the importance of clinical foot disorders. This study demonstrated the serious welfare impact of foot disorders in dairy cattle and pointed out the considerable impact of subclinical foot disorders. Furthermore, the approach of welfare assessment, for example herd v. cow level, influenced the ranking of foot disorders for their impact on animal welfare. Potentially, this leads to different prioritization of specific solution strategies for dairy farmers, for example, focusing on cow comfort, hygiene or preventive medical treatments, foot trimming and/or health monitoring. The findings in this study support in raising awareness about this welfare issue.

Lameness detection via leg-mounted accelerometers on dairy cows on four commercial farms

“…Lameness is a major health and welfare problem in modern dairy herds (Bruijnis et al, 2012), which negatively affects oestrus expression (Walker et al, 2008), fertility (Bicalho et al, 2007), feeding and rumination (Almeida et al, 2008), milk production (Kamphuis et al, 2013), lying behaviour (Ito et al, 2010;Thomsen et al, 2012) and cow longevity (Thomsen et al, 2004). The mean prevalence of lameness can be high, for example it was 37% in the United Kingdom , 44% in Denmark (Burow et al, 2014) and between 28% and 55% in regions in North America (von Keyserlingk et al, 2012).…”

Lameness detection in dairy cattle: single predictor v. multivariate analysis of image-based posture processing and behaviour and performance sensing

“…Lameness is one of the biggest health and welfare issues in modern intensive dairy farming (Bruijnis et al, 2012). The prevalence of lameness is often underestimated (Bruijnis et al, 2012;Fabian et al, 2014), and is affected by many different factors (Becker et al, 2014).…”

“…The prevalence of lameness is often underestimated (Bruijnis et al, 2012;Fabian et al, 2014), and is affected by many different factors (Becker et al, 2014). The most common method to obtain a herd lameness prevalence rate is visual locomotion scoring (Flower and Weary, 2009).…”

“…An early treatment of the lesion that is causing the lameness improved the cure rate of the animal (Thomas et al, 2013). An early treatment of lameness will also reduce the economic impact of lameness on total farm economics (Bruijnis et al, 2012). Other studies have, however, point to the fact that an early detection alone is not enough, but that an adequate action of the farmer is as important.…”

Measures to improve dairy cow foot health: consequences for farmer income and dairy cow welfare

“…A disadvantage is the high prevalence and incidence of foot disorders (clinical and subclinical; Hedges et al, 2001;Somers et al, 2003), which cause high economic losses (Bruijnis et al, 2010;Ettema et al, 2010) and also seriously impair the welfare of dairy cattle (Bruijnis et al, 2012). The different foot disorders are present in varying severities and have multifactorial risk factors, making it a difficult health problem to combat (Ward, 2009).…”