Abstract

The long-term competitive, profitable milk-production can only be achieved by the reduction of production costs and animal diseases. These costs have become very important risk factors of herd profitability. Therefore, one of the basic aims of dairy managers today is to minimize the incidence, consequently the losses caused by herd diseases. In studies carried out in intensive dairy units showed that lameness was responsible for the third largest economic losses after mastitis and reproductive disorders, and the largest part of losses resulted from the returns foregone, that is, the diminished income due to reduced production. The aim of this study is to gain a broader knowledge about the causes of lameness, their occurrence, and how these factors have an economic impact on dairy cattle herds by influencing the production parameters. There is a wide source of literature dealing with the occurrence and the clinical and aetiological origin of the major types of lameness. The incidence value of lameness is between 20% and 35%. In order to calculate the economic cost of lameness in intensive dairy herds authors recognized the following components as the sources of losses: reduced milk receipts, decreased revenues due to longer calving interval, treatment costs, extra labour costs, cost of early culling and cost of live weight loss. The largest part of the loss due to lameness mostly came from the decreased milk receipts and the premature disposal, at the same time the drug cost could usually be blamed for the smallest cost component. The magnitude of loss resulting from lameness in dairy units is very similar in different countries, mostly varying between €40-50 per cow and €100-300 per case.

Keywords

Dairy cattle, Lameness, Occurrence, Production impact, Economic cost, Subclinical, Clinical, Energy balance, Fusobacterium, Septic arthritis, Raspberry heel, Trauma, Environmental factors