ECONOMIC-LOSSES DUE TO CLINICAL LAMENESS IN DAIRY-CATTLE

Effects of clinical digital diseases on milk production, calving inter val, culling rate and incidence of other diseases were derived from da ta on 2183 cows and 6273 lactations, routinely collected by veterinari ans on 21 dairy farms served by the School of Veterinary Medicine in U trecht, Netherlands. Effects that could not be obtained from the datas et (i.e., fluctuations in live weight, labour requirement and treatmen ts) were derived from literature. All physical effects were built into a Partial Budgeting model to calculate the economic losses on the far ms. The results showed that the average losses from clinical digital d iseases per foot-lame cow were NLG 230 per year. The incidence in thes e herds averaged 21%, resulting in a loss of almost NLG 50 per average cow present in the herd, This equals 4-5% of a typical income on Dutc h dairy farms, and ranks third after mastitis (NLG 150 per cow) and fe rtility problems (NLG 125 per cow). Differences in losses among farms were found to be even greater than the average losses, indicating that there is potential for improvement. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.