How an adviser’s dairy foot health focus improved milk yields

Veterinary lameness expert Sara Pedersen is seeing real progress in improving the foot heath of the nation’s dairy herds, a problem that is estimated by the Royal Veterinary College to cost the industry £250m/year.

The costs of poor foot health are often hidden, compared with diseases such as mastitis, but can drain a business in terms of higher culling rates, lower fertility and time spent on emergency treatments.

See also: How a low-cost camera improves lameness detection for dairy farm

It is Sara’s single-minded drive to stamp down lameness in milking herds by working with farmers and foot-trimmers that helped her win Farmers Weekly’s 2023 Livestock Adviser of the Year award.

“The award has given me added confidence in what I am doing, and has opened up new doors for the business,” she says.

Since her win in October 2023, she has increased her focus on online training, and is moving towards more automation and farmer collaboration regarding foot-trimming data.

Discussion groups

Sara is based in Cowbridge, South Wales, and formed her own company, Farm Dynamics, in 2014. Although most of her 50 mainly dairy farmer clients are in Wales, she also has some in England, Scotland and Ireland.

The three farmer discussion groups she runs every month have seen some big successes in improved foot health, and have given participating farmers great confidence that they are in control of lameness.

“There is a recognition that improving lameness is no quick fix, but that we can work together as an industry to improve the issue,” she says.

The backbone of her approach is a strict scoring regime, which leads to regular visits from a skilled foot-trimmer.

This can help cut down on the three main causes of lameness – bacterial digital dermatitis, sole ulcers and white line problems from poor cow movement.

Mobility improvements

This strategy is bearing fruit for her clients, especially as milk processors and retailers are looking increasingly at higher welfare standards and rewarding those with good results.

One of Sara’s clients, Russell Morgan, saw the benefits of conducting mobility scoring every two weeks as it cut lameness over a three-year period from 45% of his cows to just 8%, and helped him win a valuable milk contract adding an extra £8,000 to his monthly milk cheque.

Russell, farming at Graig Olway, near Usk in Gwent, south-east Wales, is now expanding his herd to 300 Holstein cows from 230, due to the reduction in lameness.

With a more mobile and healthier herd giving higher yields, Russell, who has a milk contract with Marks & Spencer, is now looking to put more emphasis on genetics to improve productivity in his robot-milked herd.

Environmental benefits

Sara says the benefits of improved cow mobility extend to helping the environment, as more efficient milk production and lower culling rates can help reduce overall carbon emissions by producing more milk from the same number of cows.

The cost of lameness and reduced mobility to the UK dairy industry is being studied by the Royal Veterinary College, which along with other academic institutions is looking at the causes of bad foot health.

Sara’s interest in lameness led her to a PhD at Nottingham University, which she is about to complete, and has thrown up some “exciting” data when looking at the need for foot treatment for young heifers before they enter the milking herd.