A trustworthy Hoof health index

Lameness caused by hoof disorders is among the biggest challenges that a dairy herd can face. Lameness is one of the top three culling reasons after fertility and udder diseases. Hoof problems cause pain and distress for cattle and significantly impact the farm’s bottom line.

The costs related to lameness are enormous and include, for example: 

• Fertility problems
• Veterinarian and medicine expenses
• Costs of preventive measures
• Lost milk production
• Culling costs
• Genetic impact of losing top-performing daughters
• Extra time and labor costs

The data behind the Hoof health index is the records on hoof disorders collected by hoof trimmers during the first three lactations.

Hoof trimmers register all “findings” or all “no findings” on each hoof of every cow they trim into three different categories:

• 0 - no disease
• 1 - mild disease
• 2 - severe disease

What makes the Hoof health index unique is that in the Nordic countries, we register actual disease cases and don’t just rely on correlated traits - like Feet & Legs conformation. A feet and legs index, on its own, is not a good enough predictor for improving hoof health.

The correlation between the Feet & Legs index and the Hoof health index is around 20%. Only one out of five times would you succeed in improving hoof health if you rely on Feet & Leg conformation. Therefore, registrations of actual diseases are a more accurate breeding value base.

Electronic hoof trimmer data is collected for 40% of cows in Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. That results in a high reliability of breeding value for hoof health.

Want to learn how much improvement you could get from a bull with high breeding values for hoof health? Read the next entry of NTM Unlocked.