Evaluation of Three Commercial Hoof Care Products Used in Footbaths in Danish Dairy Herds

Footbaths have been used extensively for prevention and cure of digital dermatitis. However, there is a lack of scientific evidence regarding the effect of hoof care products used in footbaths. We evaluated 3 commercial hoof care products in 12 Danish dairy herds using a controlled, clinical trial. The hoof care products represented the 3 main groups of active compounds currently legal in Denmark (glutaraldehyde, organic acids and quaternary ammonium compounds). Each product was tested in 4 herds. We used a split footbath with one side of the cow treated and the other side as a negative control.
In each herd, 100 cows were selected randomly. All digital dermatitis lesions were recorded during hoof trimming at the start of the study. All cows walked through the footbath two days a week for 8 weeks. Hereafter, the cows were examined in the hoof trimming box again and all lesions were recorded. In each herd, we calculated the percentage of cows with digital dermatitis at the start of the study that were cured during the study period (termed percent cured) and the percentage of cows with new infections during the study period (termed percent new infections). Percent cured ranged from 13.6 to 100 and percent new infections ranged from 0 to 35.5.
For all hoof care products, the difference between treatment and control sides was not statistically ...