Lameness in dairy cows: where are we going?

After the biennial Ruminant Lameness Conference (held recently in Venice), it is always a good time to reassess our position in lameness control and management (and our future direction). The combination of invited plenary speakers and selected oral presentations usually provides an overview of where we have been and where we are going, and the Venice conference was no exception.

It is important to start with the conclusion from a recent review (Thomsen and Shearer, 2023): despite success at the individual farm level, overall lameness prevalence has not changed in the last 35 years. This is despite the fact that we know far more about lameness treatment, management, control and prevention than we did in 1989. Lameness remains the most intractable welfare problem on dairy farms and a continued major source of reduced productivity and economic loss. It is clear that despite significant increases in our understanding of the problem over the last 40 years, we are nowhere near a solution.