Hoof trimmer performance on California dairies based on observed practices during therapeutic trimming

Abstract

Lameness on dairies is an important issue, with implications on animal welfare and the herd production level. Functional and therapeutic hoof trimming can serve to prevent and treat lameness and hoof lesions. On large California dairies, hoof trimming tasks are performed by in-house employees, outside service providers or both. However, most hoof trimmers (HT) lack formal education on trimming techniques and their performance is often unsupervised. Thus, the objective of this study was to describe HT performance based on observed practices during lame cow treatment on California dairies.