Adequacy of Trimming Procedures of Rear Feet Collected from a Slaughterhouse

The purpose of this study was to determine the adequacy of functional claw trimming of recently trimmed rear feet of culled cows taken at slaughter. Inadequate trimming procedures may contribute to increased lameness resulting in unnecessary culling.
During a 12 month period, 2,499 rear cadaver feet were evaluated by the same individual in accordance with the guidelines of functional trimming developed by Raven (1985). Imbalance (heel of inner and outer claw level and perpendicular to long axis of the metatarsus or not), claw length (one or both claws too short = 75mm, or correct = 75mm), axial and abaxial wall integrity (one or both claws removed or not), sole surface (concave or flat for one or both claws), and degree of axial modeling (adequate or not done) was scored for each foot.
Feet were classified as trimmed if some evidence of recent trimming was apparent (grinder or knife marks). 9.6% of the feet examined were classified as trimmed (n=241). Where no evidence of recent trimming was apparent, the feet were classified as untrimmed. The frequency of abnormal observations for trimmed and untrimmed ...