Abstract
Digital dermatitis DD can cause lameness and pain in dairy cows The objective of this week study conducted at the University of Kentucky Coldstream Dairy Research Farm was to test the effects of electrolyzed water in a copper sulfate solution on DD A split plastic footbath was used to deliver two footbath solutions The control solution assigned to the left hooves of the cow contained L of water with kg of copper sulfate and mL of acidifier The treatment solution assigned to the right hooves of the cows contained the same solution as the control side with the addition of L of electrolyzed water The footbath solutions were made Monday thru Friday before morning milkings Cows walked through the footbath while exiting the milking parlor once a day The solutions were dumped after the completion of morning milkings Holstein cows n DD were scored biweekly in the milking parlor to determine active or inactive DD Rear hooves were hosed off to remove debris before being evaluated A headlamp was worn to provide clarity of hooves while scoring The FREQ Procedure of SAS SAS Institute Inc Cary NC was used for a chi square analysis and a McNemar s test was used to compare the number of hooves with active DD to the number of hooves with non active DD No significant differences in DD between the control and treatment groups existed P however over the course of the study both footbath solutions improved DD overall P These results suggest that the addition of electrolyzed water in a footbath solution had no negative effect on DD
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call