Research Summary - 2
The effect of mid-lactation hoof trimming of multiparous dairy cows on risk of subsequent lesion development
| Date/Time: |
9/12/2025
11:45
|
| Author: |
Gerard Cramer |
| Clinic: |
University of Minnesota |
| City, State, ZIP: |
Minneapolis, MN 55418 |
G. Cramer, DVM, DVSc
1
;
E. Shepley, PhD
1
;
S. van de Pol, DVM
2
;
1Department of Veterinary Population Medicine, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, 55108
2CATTLEytics Inc., Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L9C 5P3
Introduction:
Hoof trimming (HT) is often seen as the most impactful management practice for good hoof health in dairy herds, but also represent a cost to producers and are a stressful event for cows. While HT around dry-off is the most common preventative practice on farms that practice routine HT, many farms implement an additional HT at mid-lactation. Studies have found that a second HT at mid-lactation can reduce hoof lesion risk and decrease lameness prevalence; however, other studies report little to no effect. These conflicting results suggest that the level of benefit of mid-lactation HT may be dependent on multiple cow-level factors, allowing for a more selective targeting of cows that will benefit from a mid-lactation HT and those for which this trim can be omitted. While our previous research showed no differences in hoof lesion risk or time-to-lesion in first lactation cows with no history of hoof lesions, it is unknown if this trim can similarly be omitted from multiparous cows with no hoof lesion history. Thus, the objective of our study was to determine the effect of routine HT at mid-lactation versus no HT at mid-lactation in multiparous cows without any history of hoof lesions.
Materials and methods:
Second and third lactation cows with no previous history of hoof lesions from 14 dairy herds were enrolled into the study at 117 ± 2 DIM. At the beginning of the week they were due to receive their mid-lactation HT, cows were randomly allocated to either a TRT group (n = 9,638), which received a mid-lactation HT, or a negative control group (CON) (n = 9,705) that was not trimmed. Both groups were marked as enrolled in each herd’s management software, but only cows in the TRT group were placed on their herd’s trim list to receive HT in the week of enrollment. The enrollment date was considered D0 in our analysis for both groups. Cow demographic and hoof lesion data, including historical data on previous hoof trimming and hoof lesion events, were extracted from a data aggregation platform (MilkShake, Cattleytics).
Outcomes of interest in the study were overall lesion prevalence risk at the next HT and time-to-next HT occurrence. The hazard of lesion development was analyzed using a Cox proportional hazard model that included the effect of treatment, breed composition – defined as % Jersey (0% being full Holstein and 100% being full Jersey), lactation, DIM at enrollment, and farm.
Results:
Of the TRT cows, 6652/9638 (69%) were trimmed within 2 weeks of enrollment. In the first 5 months of the study follow-up, 1845 (1240 CON and 605 TRT) cows were trimmed. In the preliminary analysis of lesion risk, CON cows had a higher risk (4.2%) than TRT cows (2.0%). This 2.1% (95%CI: 1.5-2.5) higher risk in CON cows resulted in a 2.1 (95% CI: 1.8-2.5) higher hazard for having a lesion in CON cows. The CON cows had a 1.1% (95% CI: 0.7-1.5) higher prevalence risk of infectious lesions and a 0.9% (95% CI: 0.6-1.3) higher risk of non-infectious lesions than TRT cows. Differences varied between farms.
Significance:
In this study, mid-lactation HT of 2nd and 3rd lactation cows with no lesion history resulted in a slightly lower risk of hoof lesions. However, considering the slight reduction in hoof lesion prevalence, the economic benefit of a mid-lactation HT may be limited. Thus, to truly determine the benefit of HT cows with no history of lesions, the effect of HT on productivity and welfare needs to be carefully weighed for each farm to best decide if mid-lactation HT should be provided or omitted for specific populations of dairy cows.
