farm-healthy-herd-9.html
VikingNews UK 04 2016
10 / 28
10 vikingnews | november 2016
hoof
disorders
in dairy cattle cause lameness and a lot of pain and leads to large loss in production and early involuntary culling of cows. lameness is a symptom of a very painful condition and an im- portant welfare problem in modern dairy production. nursing, environment and feeding play a central role in the occurrence of
hoof
disorders
, but also genetics are important. modern high-produc- ing dairy cows have a high risk of
hoof
disorders
? also in good envi- ronment. the most effective way to increase the resistance against
hoof
disorder through breeding in long term is by
health
y
hoof
s by lea foustad harbo, vikingdanmark improved
hoof
health
- increased profit using
hoof
health
as a breeding goal. by including
hoof
health
in the nor- dic total merit index (ntm), viking- genetics was the first artificial in- semination (ai) company in the world with
hoof
health
in their breeding goal. the fact that genetic progress in
hoof
health
is possible is mainly due to the access to the world?s largest database for
hoof
health
.
hoof
trim- mers in sweden, denmark and fin- land register the data and today we have more than 2 mill. registrations in the database. in the
hoof
health
index, there are registrations from cows in lacta- tion 1-3. some
disorders
have been categorized because they are symp- toms of the same or almost the same disorder: infectious or hygiene related (digital dermatitis, skin prolifer- ation and heel horn erosion) laminitis related
disorders
(sole haemorrhages, white line dis- ease and sole ulcer) malformation
hoof
s (cork screw
hoof
) sole ulcer has the highest weight in the
hoof
health
index since this is the disorder with the highest eco- nomic loss and a very painful dis- order for the cow. differences between bulls vh clark, one of our proven bulls with ntm +27 has a
hoof
health
in- dex of 128 and for digital dermatitis specifically, he has 143. that means that vh clark actually lowers the risk of getting the disease by 50% on his daughters. this is worth taking into consideration when selecting bulls to use in the herd.
hoof
health
has a strong correlation with longevity. unique traits
procross-breeds-health-11.html