Mobility Scoring

Early identification and prompt treatment is one of the cornerstones of lameness control within the Healthy Feet Programme. Numerous studies have confirmed the benefits of early treatment and we would all accept that treating a lame cow sooner rather than later can only be a good thing.

However, treatment of these early onset cases of lameness is often delayed as other cows get prioritised at the foot trimming visit. For instance, chronic score 3 cows, acute score 3 cases and dry off trims generally make up the bulk of the cows presented to the foot trimmer, rather than the score 2 cows.

Early identification and prompt treatment often requires no extra capital investment and can make a huge difference to the number of lame cows in as little as 6 months.

There are also significant long term benefits as lameness leads to chronic bony changes in the hoof, which in turn predisposes cows to repeat lameness events in subsequent lactations.

Mobility scoring has often been seen as an unwelcome paperwork exercise imposed by outside agencies. On the other hand, we feel that monthly mobility scoring to generate treatment lists is extremely beneficial and can be a very cost effective way to tackle lameness in your herd.

We offer monthly mobility scoring through our Vet Tech service.

These visits often coincide with milking and the data is recorded through our on-farm software App.

We can then generate treatment lists for you or your foot trimmer. In addition, we can also add the results from the foot trimming records back into the software.

This allows us to monitor lameness levels, lesion prevalence and treatment success over time.