Cow Health
5 factors that influence hoof health
That good hoof health in cows is important, everyone readily agrees. But why in practice is it sometimes quite a challenge to maintain hoof health? Hoof health is influenced by several factors that together determine how well a cow can move. This can be summarised as:
Locomotion = Barn design + Hygiene & Climate + Preventive hoof care + Nutrition
In a series of five articles, hoof health expert André Janse, Farm Management Specialist at Lely, takes a closer look at this topic and shares valuable insights and practical tips.
Locomotion 1/5
The cow is and remains a fantastic animal. She can turn products which humans cannot digest (roughage like grass) into products like milk and meat, which are necessary and/or of high value to humans. This is all thanks to its four stomachs plus digestive system, of which the rumen is a very important one. But that does not make dairy farmers have milk in the milk tank.
Dairy farmers look after their animals to achieve favourable milk production, which we help 'harvest' with our Astronaut. Whether the cows have eaten grass outside in the meadow or are feeding on the winter stocks of roughage in the barn. The cows must first absorb the forage before it can be made into milk. With a high-producing cow, it has to go in at the front before it can come out as milk.
An average Holstein cow eats about 45-50 kg of feed per day at the feed fence in winter. In addition, if she is high-producing, she drinks around 180 litres of water. In between she has several moments of lying down in the cubicle, a total of 12 to 14 hours a day where ruminating takes place. She also walks through the (Astronaut) automatic milking robot about 3 to 6 times a day, about twice too early to be milked but during 2 to 4 visits she is also milked here and we know she can give between 22 and 60 kg of milk a day.
This requires a sturdy pair of legs with hoofs. So not only for a good Astronaut visit, actually much more important, for a good feed fence visit!
Hoofs carry the milk!
