Ideally, cows wouldn’t be standing around in saturated paddocks for too long – but sometimes this can’t be avoided! Unfortunately, mud and moisture create the perfect environment for bacteria to affect hooves and skin.

While you can’t control the weather conditions, here are a few things you can do to lessen the impact of the rain and reduce lame cow numbers due to your farm systems:

• Ensure that the shed, yards and feed pad surfaces are clean between each milking. Stones on concrete are particularly bad as they put cows at risk of sole injuries.

• Allow the cows to walk at their own pace to the shed. Cows generally want to come in for milking. Putting too much pressure behind them, or using aids such as working dogs, will increase their chance of misplacing their feet.

• Give them room in yards and use backing gates appropriately. The backing gate is designed for taking up space, not for pushing up cows. Cows bunched tightly together are more likely to slip or hurt their legs.

• Maintain a consistent milking routine, no matter who is milking. Cows will be more relaxed which will reduce the chance of injury.

• Keep lame cows in a separate mob close to the shed to reduce their walking distance and only bring them in for milking once a day.
   

Acknowledging this is a really tough time feed-wise, it’s also important to try to keep cows in as good condition as you can to lower lameness risk.

Beneath the hard sole of cows’ hooves there is a layer of fat called a ‘digital cushion’, which acts as a shock absorber. Lighter cows may be more predisposed to lameness as their digital cushions will contain less fat, therefore providing less padding.

Because cows with sore feet won’t be comfortable walking around to graze, their body condition will be further affected. This can create a cycle of lameness and will also negatively impact their production and reproductive performance.