We are now nearing the housed period for cows. With many herds now housing cattle by night, footbathing your herd should be on the agenda to stop infection spreading indoors.
Lameness can be an issue when cows are travelling long distances, on rough roadways and hard surfaces when out grazing, but infectious lameness can spread like wildfire when cows are indoors.
Any issues with infectious lameness be managed and controlled when cows are still out at grazing, as once they come inside, it can be difficult to stop the spread of such diseases.
All of these issues that cows have picked up out at grass can be exacerbated once indoors due to the hard flooring and increased infectious pressure.
Issues like digital dermatitis (mortellaro), sole ulcers, foul in the foot, and toe necrosis, can prove hard to manage if the infectious diseases are not dealt with promptly.
Footbathing
Footbathing regularly is an essential element in the control of digital dermatitis and other infectious diseases in the foot.
In order to foot bath the cows effectively, a farmer needs to ensure that there is good cow flow through the foot bath and it should be ideally, positioned permanently at or near the exit of the milking parlour.
A farmer must ensure that a foot bath is as follows:
- Minimum of 700 – 850mm wide to allow for one cow at a time with good flow;
- 3m x 850mm works very well for herds up to 250 cows;
- Herds larger than 250 cows should have their bath at least 2m wide;
- Footbaths should not have any steps up or down;
- Length should ideally be 2.5m to 3m;
- Solution depth should be 100 – 125mm;
- Volume should be 1L/cow going through the passage.
The reagents used in the footbath must be used at the correct concentrations and to get this right, the farmer must know the volume of the footbath.
Multiplying the the length by the width by the depth of the solution will give the volume in cubic metres – divide by 1000 to get the volume in litres.
The solution has to be changed often with the rule of thumb being one cow passed for every 1L of solution before changing, e.g., 50 cows pass through with 50L of solution, time to clean out bath and add more solution.
Copper sulphate and formalin are commonly used and have proved to be quite effective and antibiotics are not licensed for use in footbaths.
Antibiotic use in footbaths contributes to the microbial resistance issues the industry has been experiencing, with residues in milk or meat, environmental contamination and ineffective treatment of underlying diseases being a problem.
Getting your cows through a foot bath should be carried at least once a week if digital dermatitis is present in the herd, and more often if it prevails into the housing period.
Farmers should contact their hoof trimmer or advisor to get advice on what protocol to take as cows are coming in for housing, in order to properly treat and prevent infection in your herd.
