The Effects of Footbath Management on Digital Dermatitis Distribution

Abstract

Digital dermatitis (DD) is a common infectious disease that causes economic losses and lameness. In order to keep DD under control, the usage of footbaths is very important in intensive dairy farms. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between footbath usage and the number of active lesions related to DD. In total of 1527 cattle from 6 dairy farms were evaluated to assess and correlate, the prevalence of DD and footbath practices. Information about the farm structure and management practices of footbaths were obtained through a questionnaire. We inspected all cow feet on DD lesions during the milking time and scored the lesions using six M-stages. Thereafter, we performed a chi square test to investigate the relation between digital dermatitis prevalence and footbath practices. We observed DD lesions in 500 feet (8.2%) of 338 (22.1%) dairy cows. Farms using dry manure practices as a bedding material showed a higher digital dermatitis prevalence (p < 0.001). Farms using formalin footbath practices had the lowest digital dermatitis lesions, whereas copper sulfate (CuSO4) practice had the highest prevalence (p < 0.001). Periodically renewed footbaths showed a statistically lower DD prevalence in farms (p < 0.001). We concluded that the implementation of proper footbath design and optimization of footbath management might help to reduce the prevalence of digital dermatitis in dairies.