It goes without saying that hoof health is critical to successful robotic milking. Thank you, captain obvious. We all understand that lame cows become fetch cows. And, some research suggests higher levels of lameness in robot barns than in parlors. Nutrition, cow comfort, lying time, heat stress, and disease all impact hoof health. Ultimately the best tools we have for managing hoof health are the trimming program and the foot bath. Most farms will need both.
Develop a Hoof Trimming Program
I have seen the results in several herds and I am a firm believer in regularly scheduled maintenance trimming. I prefer that all cows have a trim after peak production and another trim before dry-off. This maintains correct hoof shape and finds small problems before they become big problems. Without a doubt, there are challenges with a maintenance program. It may not be practical for small farms to put together groups that are large enough to get the foot trimmer to the farm every month or every other month. Foot trimming day certainly disrupts traffic at the robot and nobody wants to go through that any more often than necessary. Those disadvantages need to be weighed against the goal of preventing lameness versus treating it. By the time you see a lame cow, production and visits have been lost. Just as it is better to change oil before an engine starts making funny (or not so funny) noises, it is better to trim feet before cows start to limp.
Create a Foot Bath Routine
There are many active ingredients that can go in a foot bath. Those ingredients are only as effective as the design of the foot bath. A foot bath must be effective, accessible, and clean. Those rules apply in any management system. There are a lot of different ideas about how to accomplish them in a robot barn. First, effective requires that each foot goes in the foot bath more than once. Make it 8 to 12 feet long or longer and deep enough to cover the whole hoof and adjoining lesions. Accessible means it is in a place where cows will go through it – and people will maintain it. Clean not only refers to changing the solution on a regular basis, but also minimizing contamination from feet and fresh manure.
I prefer to locate the foot bath in a cross alley, as far from the robots as possible. I don’t want the foot bath to interfere with cow traffic. I do want to keep harsh chemicals like formaldehyde and copper sulfate away from the robot. In free flow barns, moving cows through a foot bath in the far cross alley does require extra handling. In guided flow barns more than one footbath may be needed if there is more than one cross alley. The far cross alley may not be convenient for cleaning the foot bath. If the foot bath must be placed closer to the robot, monitor changes in cow traffic when the foot bath is in use, and look for ways to minimize the impact.
Cow Corner can help you evaluate convenience, cow flow and effectiveness to develop a complete hoof health program that fits your farm.
Image courtesy of https://dairy.extension.wisc.edu/articles/the-ideal-footbath/
Comments