Prevalence of Digital Dermatitis Lesions in First Lactation Heifers in Response to Season and Veterinary Lameness Control Programme Intervention

As part of an intervention study, aiming to reduce lameness through implementation of a HACCP-based veterinary lameness control programmes (LCP), sixty dairy herds in southwest Britain were visited between December 2002 and December 2005. A sample of ten heifers from each farm were randomly selected from heifers that were 60-120 days in milk and underwent veterinary examination in a footcrush . Digital dermatitis (DD) lesions were examined, scored for size and categorised by appearance. Farms were randomly assigned to intervention and control groups and a 12 month LCP was implemented by the local veterinary surgeon on 30 farms between 2003-2004. Of the 30 intervention farms, two herds withdrew from the study and one farm was diagnosed free of digital dermatitis following farmer interview and heifer examination. These herds were removed from the analyses. All control farms remained eligible ...