Dairy Cattle Behavior and Lameness

Any review of the literature of bovine lameness will suggest that etiology of claw horn lesions associated with laminitis has multiple factors. However, as we reflect on the work of herd-level lameness investigators including our own, there is a tendency to focus on single factors such as ruminal acidosis, track management, or others in an extensive list. In the past few years, we have begun to think of herd-level claw horn problems in terms of “get lame, stay lame”. In that phrase, we imply that there are risk factors that initiate a mild claw horn problem, and that other risk factors determine whether the cow recovers or goes on to become lame and chronic. Increasingly, we are identifying two aspects of cow behavior as determinants of the ‘stay lame” component. First, even the mildest signs of lameness change the behavior of the cow on firm surfaces such as mattress stalls3. Second, rank ...