Article Review: Three Commercial Hoof-Care Products Used in Footbaths

Information about the Author

This article was written by Peter T. Thomsen. He obtained a Ph.D. degree in Agricultural science under the department of animal health, welfare and nutrition. He completed his degree at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. His main focus has been on epidemiologic studies relating to animal and welfare in commercial dairy herds. He dwells most in dairy cows mortality, prevention of loser cows and assessment of the health of cows. In this article, he involved in the evaluation of Three Commercial Hoof-Care Products Used in Footbaths where he determined the most effective hoof care products that are more effective to cows and that can prevent hoof disorders. With a Ph.D. degree, Peter T Thomsen is capable of writing this kind of article to help different dairy farmers understand how to take care of hooves of their herds. Thomsen has sufficient knowledge of animal health and knows the best products that can prevent and treat foot disorders of domestic animals.

Abstract

In dairy production, the main problem which is experienced in different countries is digital dermatitis. In most cases, dairy farmers have been using footbaths to prevent and treat it although scientific evidence has not been used to back up the effectiveness of hoof care products that farmers use in the footbaths. The main purpose of this study is to assess three different hoof care products that most farmers in Danish dairy use in most cases. These products were tested using the controlled clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of each foot care products. A half of the cows under the investigation were traditional while the other half was managed organically. The three products under investigation were made up of active compounds legally allowed in Denmark and they include glutaraldehyde, Kickstart, and Hoofcare DA. In the experiment, only a split of footbath was used and only one side the animal treated while the other side was not treated. Cows were selected randomly whereby after every 100 cows one was selected to represent the whole herds. At the same time, digital dermatitis lesions were put down when trimming the hooves of the animals. All these actions were done at the beginning of the study.

The result of the analysis showed that the mean prevalence of active digital dermatitis lesions on the hind leg was found to be 21.8 and 22.7% for treating and controlling purposes. The selected cows were required to pass through the footbaths 2 days per week and they were evaluated after 8 weeks after the treatment. The cows with active digital dermatitis lesion were computed in percentages at the start of the research study and other cows that have contracted new infection was also done during the same period. The percentages of animals cured during the study were between 13.3 and 100 and animals with new infections were from 0 to 35.5. Based on the result of the analysis, all these foot-care products the variation in treatment and control was statistically insignificant and there was no effect on percentage cured for all the tested hoof care products.

Keywords

Cow, digital dermatitis, hoof care products and footbaths.

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