ATLANTIC SPIN ON TRIMMING:

Report to the Hoof Trimmers Guild on my visit to PEI

The Atlantic Veterinary College in Charlottetown, PEI, recently held a conference on Lameness in Dairy Cattle, sponsored by the AVC Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre and Animal Welfare Club, with additional support from the Animal Welfare Foundation of Canada and the AVC Bovine Club. The conference was attended by about 15 veterinarians from the three Maritime provinces, three foot trimmers from Prince Edward Island and myself, four dairy farmers, and a number of veterinary students - about 60 in total. It was advertised in the Progressive Dairyman Canada. Having five days’ work near Quebec City, I decided to run down to PEI to take in this event.

The keynote speaker was Dr. Dan Weary of the Animal Welfare Program at the University of British Columbia, who gave a talk on Friday evening "Lameness and Cow Comfort". He spoke about the COWS project at UBC to look at cow comfort and about gait scoring. He mentioned statistics from his own work and those we have heard at other conferences, and challenged us to look outside the box for solutions. This included not only stall size and bedding but also flooring, nutrition and pasture.

Saturday opened with Dr. Shawn McKenna, Health Management at AVC/ UPEI, talking on "Risk Management and Prevalence of Lameness in Dairy Herds," with a focus on reports from Canada. On average, there was about 30% lameness in dairy cows. Other studies showed that trained observers will detect lameness about 2.5 times as often as those not trained in detection, which means a significant proportion of lame cows are not identified.

Dr. McKenna gave a second talk on "Management of Lameness." He talked a lot about how the farmer must deal with lameness now and not wait [10 days] for the next visit of the hoof trimmer. He talked of the need for farmers to have their own stall available to do the job until the vet or hoof trimmer can get there. Most of his talk was as an overview and I felt that this was needed to try and get these vet students to start thinking about the problems of lameness. **

Dr. Kip Lemke is a specialist on Anesthesiology and he gave an interesting talk on pain control. He talked a lot about drugs that we hoof trimmers could not use but also about pain pathways and for me it opened up an area where I would begin to ask questions at a later date.

The presentations from all speakers are at www.upei.ca/awc/animal-welfare-conference. I think both Dr. Weary and Dr. Lemke should be asked to talk to the OHTG at some point in the future.

After lunch on Saturday there was a round table forum of six to have an open discussion and I had to remember that the focus was not just on lameness but on Animal Awareness. Discussion started with the possibility that for most tie stalls our cows are too big and that mortality in [tie stalls] is less. Scandinavian countries are phasing out tie stalls.

Dr. Weary talked of a lack of vision and that we had to use our imagination to improve facilities and try out different options managing for production and health. The average lameness in all dairy herds in the world is 30%. UK farmers are beginning to recognize the economic consequences of lameness duration.

At the dairy farm level, lameness recognition must be a team effort and requires education at all levels. As Animal Welfare people [agents/operatives/workers] we have to establish goals, decide what are the limiting factors, and have a clear focus on where we are going.

Dairy welfare audits are in our future and will demand a change of attitude. Sweden has mandatory pasture regulations. Bench marking everyone on a graph was suggested as a way of getting farmers to compare themselves to other farmers. With time, this might be part of a solution. It was felt that legislation might be necessary. In other words, if we do not make the changes that are needed, they will be made for us.

The day ended with a video workshop on lameness scoring and a wet lab on hoof trimming. The latter consisted of the trimming demo on one live cow and then the participants (vets or vet students) working on cadaver feet with trimming wheels. I had offered, on my application, to assist with the live demo and my participation was welcomed, so I had trucked my gear along from Quebec. All went well, apart from the reloading in pouring rain after the event and a wet drive back across New Brunswick!

for more information on this conference:
CONFERENCE 2011 Animal Welfare In Practice - Lameness in Dairy Cattle