In the final year of a three-year study of lameness in dairy cattle, 40 herds were allocated to either an intervention (22) or control (18) group. Farms in the intervention group were visited by a veterinarian who made up to 16 recommendations to reduce the incidence of lameness based on potential risks for lameness observed at that visit. Farms in the control group were visited and the same observations were made, but no changes recommended. All farms were visited on three further occasions to score the locomotion of all cows and collect information on changes made to the farm. Before intervention, the mean herd size, lactation average milk yield per cow and prevalence of severely lame cows were 122, 8,157 I and 9.85% for the control group and 109, 7,807 I and 9.14% for the intervention group. After the intervention there were no significant differences between the treatments in terms of the change in prevalence of severely lame cows or the change in rate of sole ulcer, white line disease or digital dermatitis. The overall uptake of recommendations was 41.3%. There were no significant correlations between the percentage of risks addressed and the rate of sole ulcer or prevalence of severely lame cows and only a non-significant trend for white line disease. Improvements to cubicle dimensions were associated with a reduction in the rate of sole ulcer, and changing nutrition and adding biotin to the ration were associated with a reduction in white line disease. Conversely, increasing the amount of sawdust to cubicle floors was associated with increased rate of sole ulcer and white line disease and improving cubicle dimensions was associated with increased rate of white line disease.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether the presence of digital dermatitis (DD) and sole ulcer (SU) in dairy cows was associated with changes in behaviour and milk production. Swedish Red and Swedish Holstein cows (mostly in the first to second lactation) were housed in a cubicle system with automatically scraped passageways. After maintenance claw trimming of all the cows in the herd, 10 cows with DD and 10 cows with SU were selected. For each DD- or SU-affected cow, a healthy control cow, matched according to breed, age, parity and lactation stage, was selected. The behaviour of each of the 20 focal cows was observed for 1 h during 2 to 3 weeks after claw trimming (WACT; period 1) and for 1 h during 5 to 6 WACT (period 2). Milk production parameters: energy-corrected milk (ECM), fat and protein percentages and somatic cell counts (SCCs) were recorded once monthly. Lameness was scored once at the start of the study and cows with SU and DD showed more score 2 lameness (42% v. 31%) than the healthy cows (12%). Most differences in behaviour were found during 2 to 3 WACT when DD- and SU-affected cows were lying less (P = 0.001 and P = 0.012, respectively) than healthy cows. Ruminating while standing was performed more in DD-affected cows (P < 0.001) and tended to be performed more in SU-affected cows (P = 0.079) than their controls. Vigilance was performed more in DD- and SU-affected cows than in healthy cows (P < 0.001 and P = 0.047). Cows with DD produced approximately 5.5 kg less ECM per day both at 2 to 3 WACT (P = 0.022) and at 5 to 6 WACT (P = 0.017) than healthy cows, whereas SU-affected cows tended to produce less ECM at 5 to 6 WACT (P = 0.059). No differences in milk fat and protein or SCC were found. It may be concluded that DD-affected cows showed a stronger behavioural response to the claw disease than the SU-affected cows. This shows the importance of regular claw checking and claw trimming of the cows in order to avoid the negative effects on behaviour and milk production.