Improving Claw Health in Dutch Dairy Herds

A study was done to investigate the possibility to improve claw health at herd level within a period of 1 year in 18 dairy herds. Claw health was monitored using an individual cow based claw-herd health score (CHS) system that corrected recordings of claw trimming for parity, stage of lactation and moment (=season) of claw trimmings. Herd-specific advice was given during regular meetings and on general consensus with a team of different claw-health advisors. It was found that even with this intensive team approach chosen, on average 62% of advice given was implemented with great variation between herds (20-100%). Over time, the CHS improved by 15%. The overall conclusion was, that based on the improvements achieved in most of the participating herds, substantial progress in claw health in dairy herds in The Netherlands can be realized within a one-year period.