Automatically measured variables related to tenderness of hoof placement and weight distribution are valuable indicators for lameness in dairy cows

Invited review: Cattle lameness detection with accelerometers

“…Using the Gaitwise system, stance time (weight-bearing) for the nonlame leg was also found to be longer in lame cows (Van Nuffel et al, 2013, 2015a. Lame cows are relatively cautious or careful about affected foot placement as this action is thought to be painful (Van De Gucht et al, 2017b). Van De Gucht et al (2017b) reported that the duration of foot placement and foot lifting was relatively longer for lame cows.…”

“…Lame cows are relatively cautious or careful about affected foot placement as this action is thought to be painful (Van De Gucht et al, 2017b). Van De Gucht et al (2017b) reported that the duration of foot placement and foot lifting was relatively longer for lame cows. Volkmann et al (2019) examined sound generated by cows walking past microphones.…”

“…Foot load acceleration magnitude and peak value asymmetry between legs were found to differ between lame and nonlame cows (Alsaaod et al, 2017(Alsaaod et al, , 2019a. It is interesting to note the focus on asymmetry in accelerometer studies (Alsaaod et al, 2017(Alsaaod et al, , 2019a and the focus on averages and inconsistency for the pressure mat studies (Van Nuffel et al, 2013, 2015aVan De Gucht et al, 2017b). It may be advantageous for accelerometer-based research to focus more on measures of inconsistency.…”

“…The key gait variables measurable by accelerometers were walking speed (Chapinal et al, 2011;Beer et al, 2016), stride distance (Beer et al, 2016;Alsaaod et al, 2017), weight shifting while standing (Chapinal et al, 2011;Thorup et al, 2015), and tenderness measures such as foot placement and lifting duration (Alsaaod et al, 2017;Van De Gucht et al, 2017b). Gait-based approaches have been less studied (Table 4) compared with behavior-based approaches (Table 1-3).…”

Farm-specific economic value of automatic lameness detection systems in dairy cattle: From concepts to operational simulations

“…Initial PVNAC estimates indicate a rather low economic value with respect to current prototype costs [e.g., €20,000 hardware costs for a walkover system using a pressure mat (Van Nuffel, 2014)]. This indicates the need to downscale current system prototypes in terms of system cost [e.g., by lowering sensor costs as investigated by Van De Gucht et al (2017a)], and to upscale the detection performance [e.g., searching new sensor-derived variables that could increase detection performance (Van De Gucht et al, 2017b)] to increase their cost effectiveness. Still, economic value may be difficult to obtain.…”