The effect of claw disorders on the locomotion activity of dairy cows

© Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra Faculty of Agrobiology and Food Resources

Cows are rather stoic, they express pain rarely, unless the severity of the stimulus becomes sever enough (Anil et al., 2005;Hudson et al., 2008). However, cows suffering from lameness show signs of behavioural changes, as such, cows inflicted with pain stemming from lameness change their behaviour in order to reduce discomfort (Hudson et al., 2008). Such behavioural changes include, for example a decrease in movement activity, decrease in locomotion activity, decrease in feed intake, reduced mental responsiveness, lessened interaction with other animals, grinding of teeth, and posture changes and changes in gait. In reality though, cows suffering from lameness are often insufficiently identified and insufficiently treated (Bruijnis et al., 2010).
The health condition of claws also significantly affects the locomotion activity of dairy cows. Claw disorders can be most generally characterized as a behavioural manifestation of limb and claw diseases, which causes the animal to feel pain, and can be observed in the animal's impaired movement. Impaired movement of the affected animal has a negative effect on the animal's movement on slippery floors, when lying down, as well as moving. A claw disease is the first sign of worsened welfare, before it negatively affects the ability of the cow to move to the feeding trough, watering trough, resting place (box) and thus significantly affecting the performance and overall health of the animal (Bruijnis et al., 2010).
Claw disorders afflict up to 25% of animals in common herds. In herds with neglected claw care, up to 70% of dairy cows can be affected. Depending on the degree of affliction, milk yields decrease by 5 to 50% and weight loss occurs by up to 1 kg per day. The decrease in productivity usually manifests itself as early as two to four months before the diagnosis of the disease, i.e. before the onset of clinical symptoms. This means, that the initial changes in the physiological state leading to lameness need to be detected as soon as possible. In the Netherland it has been calculated, that the average cost of claw diseases ranges from € 55 to € 79 per dairy cow per lactation. The calculus included losses in milk production, treatment costs, decommissioning costs, reduced fertility and the occurrence of other diseases. Care for limbs and claws needs to be given the required attention, when the price for treatment of healthy claws is around € 3.5 per piece. (Strapák et al., 2013).

Cows and housing
The core measurements were performed in the dairy farm in University of Agriculture in Nitra, with a herd consisting of the Holstein dairy cows, where the average productivity reaches 10,300 kg of milk. The dairy cows were housed in a free stall barn with cubicles, which were bedded with recycled manure solids (RMS). The floors of the stall were made of concrete with rubber mats. Animals were fed TMR (total mixed ratio) ad libitum throughout the whole lactation.

Data collection
The farm was equipped with a comprehensive technological device Heatime RuminAct with DataFlowTMII software installed. All dairy cows were equipped with Heatime RuminAct collars. We monitored the locomotion activity of 87 dairy cows during 10 days before the claw trimming (days -10 to -1), on the day of claw trimming (day 0) and 10 days after the day of the claw trimming (days 1 to 10). Locomotion activity of dairy cows was expressed in units of locomotion activity in 24 hours (u/24 h). We recorded the health condition of the claws and based on the presence of claw disorder, divided the dairy cows into two groups. Dairy cows without the presence of claw disorders formed a group of 33 animals and dairy cows in which we recorded the presence of claw disorders formed a sample of 54 animals. We performed a basic statistical analysis and tested the differences in locomotion activity between the group of dairy cows with healthy claws and the group of dairy cows with claw disorders using a Student's T-test to determine if the mean values of two data sets are significantly different.

Results and discussion
The most common claw diseases we observed were interdigital dermatitis (ID), digital dermatitis (DD) and sole ulcer (SU). The percentage of these diseases in the group of sick dairy cows was as follows: DD 40.7%, SU 31.5%, ID 27.8%. Based on the performed analysis, we recorded a lower locomotion activity of dairy cows with claw diseases by3 to 61 u/24 h on all evaluated days, while the most significant difference was found on the 7 th day before the claw trimming. On the day of claw trimming (d0), the average difference in locomotion activity was between affected and unaffected cows 9 u/24 h. According to our findings, we recorded a statistically significant difference in movement of healthy dairy cows compared to movement of dairy cows suffering from one of the claw diseases (P <0.01). Dairy cows  et al. (2003) observed the daily activity level of 345 dairy cows over a period of 7 months with the use of pedometers and discovered significant impact of lameness on activity.
In comparison to healthy cows, lame cows displayed lower daily activity levels (P <0.001). Nechanitzky et al. (2016) discovered in their experiment, that lame cows spent substantially more (P = 0.049) time lying (6.48 ±1.32 h/12 h) and less time (P = 0.049) standing and walking (5.52 ±1.32 h/12 h), respectively, than cows not afflicted by lameness (5.50 ±1.40 and 6.51 ±1.40 h/12 h). They also found out, that the lying time at night of lame cows was drastically longer compared to cows not suffering from lameness. King et al. (2017) compared the daily locomotion activity of dairy cows and found, that healthy dairy cows (402.9 ±121 u/24 h) move more, than lame cows (378.0 ±126 u/24 h). Weigele et al. (2018) found, that the average locomotionactivity and the locomotion activity during 1 hour after delivering food were lower in lame cows as opposite to healthy cows. Beer et al. (2016) have in their work discovered, that lame cows have longer lying bouts, shorter standing time, fewer standing and walking bouts, fewer and shorter strides and an overall lower walking speed. Thorup et al. (2015) also came to similar conclusions, where lame Holsteindairy cows had lower total activity and activity per second in terms of walking, walking duration and step frequency. Multipleauthors confirm, that an accelerometer combined with the newly developed and validated algorithm, when taking into consideration extended characteristics of locomotionbehaviour, can be useful for accurately detecting lameness in dairy cows, and that in cows with cases of slight lameness (Flower et al., 2006;Shepley et al., 2017;O'Leary et al., 2020).

Figure 1
Locomotion activity of dairy cows with and without claw disorders

Conclusions
In order to improve animal welfare, detection of lame cows is vital. Lameness in cows can result in reduced fertility, reduced milk yield, increased risk of culling, increased costs of treatment, and added expenses from additional labour. Scoring of locomotion is a time-consuming process and as such is not commonly conducted on dairy farms. Farmers also have a tendency to underestimate lameness prevalence in their herds. This knowledge gap disrupts lameness management. This knowledge gap could be addressed by automation of lameness detection and lead to improved lameness management. Earlier detection and automation of detection could reduce the time from onset to treatment, inhibiting lameness cases from becoming severe, accelerating recovery, increasing production and improving welfare.
Monitoring the return to normal locomotion after treatment would also be facilitated.