It is official! The outside claw on the hind foot of dairy cows is higher than the inside claw on 99.9% of cows in NZ. This is something that you already may have realized but now it is backed up with the research trial that we are doing.

Recently we did the measuring on our third and last research farm. That makes the total number of cows included into our research 2864. In case you were not aware of the trial that we are conducting, we are preventatively trimming up to 500 cows on each of our three trial farms. There are another 500 cows in the control mob on each of those farms. As the farmers are recording all their lameness in dairy cows, we can establish the effects and benefits of preventative hoof trimming in NZ. If you want to know the results then I suggest you keep an eye out on our website as we are going to keep updates of our trial published on it.

How the measuring for the claws are performed

Because we needed to split the cows into two equal mobs we needed to measure the height differences between the inside and the outside claw of each of the cows included in our trial. Even though the average height difference varied slightly per farm, they all showed the outside claw higher (or thicker) than the inside claw. This opens up a whole new set of arguments about why the lameness in dairy cow issues issues we face are not caused by physical damage. Let me explain by asking you a question. When you treat lameness in dairy cows, which claw is she usually have lameness in dairy cows on? I am sure that you would have to agree that it is usually the outer claw. We have just established that the outer claw is the thicker claw. If that claw is thicker then that would mean that the live tissue in the outer claw is more protected from outside forces than the inner claw, because it has a thicker layer of hoof protecting it. So why then is the outer claw is more damaged?

There is no reason to believe that the inside claw encounters less stones on our tracks and yards than the outer claw. Just to add to that, if we make that outer claw thinner to get it to the same thickness as the inner claw then you would expect more lameness in dairy cows because we have taken a layer of protection away from the live tissue in the outer claw. Even though it is still early into our trial, we can already see that this is not the case. As a matter of fact the amount of lameness in dairy cows is less.

The trial proven and completed

With our trial we have already proven, and will more strongly prove as the trial goes on, that there is a lot more going on with lameness in dairy cows than physical damage. Put our website (www.veehof.co.nz) in your favourites and keep your self updated with the results.

If you want to make use of the benefits of preventative hoof trimming, or need lameness in dairy cows treated, just give us a call on 0800 833 463 (VEEHOF).