The Lame Moos – a cross sectional study on lameness in selected Malaysian dairy herds

Introduction
Lameness is defined as alteration of gait resulting from pain caused by injury to the hoof or limb (Olechnowicz and Jaskowski, 2011) and considered a welfare problem (Whay and Shearer, 2017), causes economic losses from premature cull, treatment of and reduced milk yield (Green et al. 2014; Thomas et al. 2016). In Malaysia, there is little information on lameness despite increasing growth in the dairy industry. Therefore, the objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of lameness, claw lesions and associated risk factors in selected Malaysian dairy herds. 

Materials and Methods
The cross sectional study was carried out in Selangor, Malaysia, involving 8 dairy farms with a total of 251 lactating cows, of Mafriwal breed. Questionnaire was used to collect information on parity and days in milk (DIM), body condition score (BCS), hock condition score (HCS), leg hygiene, locomotion score (LS), herd size, number of milking cows, number of cows at early DIM and access to pasture. Four farms had used rubber mats. The BCS was recorded using a 1 to 4 scale (Elanco Animal Health, 2009); hock condition score on 3 levels scale where, 1 = normal area with no alopecia and inflammation, 2 = hair loss but absence or slight swelling (< 1- 2cm), 3 = hair loss and substantial swelling (> 2cm) (Gibbons et al. 2012); leg hygiene score as described by Solano et al. (2015); LS by using a modified 4-point locomotion score (DairyCo, 2007); visual examination of the posture and gait of the animal while leaving the milking palour on a flat surface; claw angles above 45° were considered overgrown (Archer et al. 2015); claw lesions were also identified. All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SSPSS 24 (Version 24.0, IBM Corp., IL USA). Prevalence of lameness and claw lesions was calculated as the total number of cows with LS ≥ 3 and affected with ≥ one or more claw lesion to the total number of observed cows in each farm. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used for non-parametric analysis. Binary logistic regression with forward procedure was applied for further risk factor analysis for lameness and reported as odds ratio (OR) with the 95% confidence interval (CI). P-value of less than 0.05 was considered significant. […]