Benchmarking Based on Regularly Recorded Claw Health Data of Austrian Dairy Cattle for Implementation in the Cattle Data Network (RDV)

Abstract

While benchmarking is already used for the assessment of performance gaps in cattle herd management and welfare concerns, its application to quantifying claw health performance is relatively new. The goal here was to establish a benchmarking system for claw health in Austrian dairy cattle. We used electronically registered claw health data of cows from 512 dairy herds documented by professional hoof trimmers, culling data from the same herds, and locomotion scores taken at regular milk performance testings in 99 dairy herds during 2020. Mean, median and the 10th, 25th, 75th, and 90th percentiles of the incidences of risk of lameness, 13 common claw lesions, and the annual culling risk directly related to claw and limb disorders were used as key performance indicators. Only validated data sets were used and participating trimmers and locomotion scorers had to pass interobserver reliability tests with weighted Cohen’s kappa values ≥0.61 indicating substantial interobserver agreement. This claw health benchmarking system is intended to be used henceforth in the transnational cattle data network (RDV) by all participating farmers and is also available for veterinarians and consultants, with the agreement of respective farmers.

The Combined Use of Automated Milking System and Sensor Data to Improve Detection of Mild Lameness in Dairy Cattle

“…Nevertheless, lameness incidence risks were high on most participating farms, highlighting an ongoing issue in some dairy herds. However, this is not representative for all Austrian dairy farms, as data from a recent benchmarking study for claw health suggested that many dairy farms in Austria have a good claw health status and lameness incidence rates of less than 24.6% for the herds in the 25th percentile [ 23 ].…”

“…All LKV employees were part of previous studies and were well trained in assessing the LCS and BCS [ 22 , 23 , 51 ]. To ensure the interobserver reliability for this study, all of them participated in a training on a commercial dairy farm in October 2019 and within two weeks thereafter completed an online video test where different video scenarios of nonlame (LCS 1) and lame cows (LCS 2–5) were presented.…”

“…Lameness prevalence in Austria varies greatly between farms, ranging from <5% to approximately 78% with a mean of 36% at the herd level [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. However, in most cases, only animals with a LCS of ≥3 (severely lame) are counted as lame, resulting in an even higher lameness prevalence when including mildly lame (LCS = 2) cows [ 21 , 22 , 23 ].…”

“…Lameness prevalence in Austria varies greatly between farms, ranging from <5% to approximately 78% with a mean of 36% at the herd level [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. However, in most cases, only animals with a LCS of ≥3 (severely lame) are counted as lame, resulting in an even higher lameness prevalence when including mildly lame (LCS = 2) cows [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Lameness in dairy cattle is mainly caused by claw and digital disorders [ 24 ], and therefore, lameness has a high impact on animal welfare [ 25 , 26 ].…”

Farm-level risk factors for digital dermatitis in dairy cows in mountainous regions

“…It is characterized by ulcerative or proliferative skin lesions that are typically located at the plantar aspect of the interdigital cleft and can result in severe lameness (Evans et al, 2016;Orsel et al, 2018;Plummer and Krull, 2017). The contagious nature and unsatisfactory treatment responses of BDD (Ariza et al, 2017;Capion et al, 2018;Orsel et al, 2018) result in prevalences of up to 91% at the herd level and 41% at the cow level (Rodriguez-Lainz et al, 1998;Cruz et al, 2001;Relun et al, 2013;Jury et al, 2021;Kofler et al, 2022). In the United States, up to 75% of dairy farms and approximately 19% of the dairy cows are affected with BDD (UW-Extension Dairy Team, 2016;USDA, 2018).…”