Mindset of dairy farmer’s advisors related to lameness

Mindset Dutch Dairy Farmer’s (Advisors) about Claw Health

Introduction

Lameness is an important farm-related disorder

• Economic damage (Huxley, 2013, Dolecheck and Bewley, 2018; Edwardis et al., 2022)

• reduced production and fertility

• costs of treatment

• premature culling/euthanasia, accounting for 25% of deaths of all dairy cows (Thomsen, 2022)

• Animal welfare. (Bruijnis et al., 2011)

Prevalence of lameness is over 30 years estimated to be around 20- 30% (Thomsen et al., 2023).

The objective of this study:

A query was performed:

Material and Methods

• To gain insight into the ‘mindset’ of dairy farmer’s + advisors about claw health of dairy cows.

• More information about their perception

• Experience common disorders

• Influence of various parameters

• Other factors/media of influence

An investigation into the mindset in 2021:

> 200 Dutch dairy farmers

20 of each advisors (veterinarians, claw trimmers and feeding advisors)

A structured questionnaire

Locomotion score according to Sprecher et al (1997), 1-5 scale Statistics

• Questionnaire performed in Formdesk

• At end of data collection, data was downloaded in Excel format

• Aoaded into Stata/Se 17.0.

• Open questions: elaborated using descriptive statitics.

Results

Participants, all male

Figure 2 shows how the different advisors estimate the importance of claw health in relation to parameters: udder health, fertility and milk production. Only practitioners consider udder health more important than claw health, in contrast to claw trimmers and feeding advisors. Suboptimal nutrition is considered as a factor of great importance by:

• 55% of dairy practitioners

• 80% of claw trimmers

• 30% feeding advisors

Discussion

Claw health:

• Considered important in nowadays

• Farmers more satisfied than advisors

• Advisors did not see improvement last 5 years

• DD and Claw-Health Disruption main disorders and footrot also mentioned by practitioners

• No commen sense about nutrition

• Better and uniform advice to farmers is desirable

• Better claw health reflects in better production and welfare

• No improvement due to lack of time and knowledge

• Advisors: better claw health is realistic in case of earlier intervention

Conclusions

As license to produce better claw health in most dairy farms is necessary

Improvement in claw health must be realized by:

- Better application of current knowledge

- Common dissemination of uniform formulated advice

- Prevention of and rapid intervention in case of clawhealth problems

References available on Request by 1st author

GD0000/00-00

Dairy farmers Claw trimmers Practitioners Feeding advisors No. interviewed 205 21 18 19 Mean age 50 (23-71) 51 (18-68) 43 (29-60) 41 (25-62) No. of years’ experience 30 28 16 16

2:

Disorder Mentioned in top 3 by farmers By claw trimmers By Practitioners By Feeding advisors Digital dermatitis 167 (82%) 20 (95%) 18 (100%) 18 (95%) White line 129 (63) 21 (100%) 14 (78%) 14 (74%) Sole ulcer 116 (57%) 12 (57%) 6 (33%) 12 (63%) Footrot 76 (37%) 2 (10%) 11 (61%) 8 (42%) Sole Haemorrhage 31 (15%) 6 (28.6%) 2 (11%) 5 (26%) Toe necrosis 10 (5%) 2 (10%) 0 0 Tyloma/Corn 11 (5%) 0 (0%) 1 (6%) 0 Others* 53 (26%) 0 (0%) 2 (11%) 0 *others is: “claw infection”, toes and claws that grow too long, “trauma”, “Pressure by stones” or no claw disorder 19% 5% 11 % 37% Claw trimmer Feeding advisor Veterinarian Little bit better Little bit worse Much better Much worse No idea The same National claw health compared to 5 years ago Figure 1. State of art of claw health in Dutch Dairy herds in comparison to 5 years ago. 100. 100. 0 50 100 50 100 Claw trimmer Feeding advisor Veterinarian Claw health Udder health percent 76. 23.8 63.2 29. 50 100 50 100 Claw trimmer Feeding advisor Veterinarian Fertility Udder health percent 85. 7 66. 7 33.3 50 100 50 100 Claw trimmer Feeding advisor Veterinarian Claw health Fertility percent 61. 38. 47. 4 52. 6 41. 58. 50 100 50 100 Claw trimmer Feeding advisor Veterinarian Fertility Milk production percent 68. 31. 6 58. 8 41. 2 50 100 50 100 Claw trimmer Feeding advisor Veterinarian Claw health Milk production percent Which health is the most important? Figure

consider

claw health,

health, fertility or milk

Table 1. Information about participants of inquiry.

Table

Claw-health problems

2 Opinion of the advisors on what they

important:

udder

production

IN ANIMAL HEALTH

Menno Holzhauer, Paola Meijer, Manon Holstege, Arne Vanhoudt, Debora Smits and Laurens Heres Royal GD, Deventer, The Netherlands

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