Peer-reviewed veterinary case report
A field investigation of the use of the pedometer for the early detection of lameness in cattle.
- Journal:
- The Canadian veterinary journal = La revue veterinaire canadienne
- Year:
- 2006
- Authors:
- Mazrier, Hamutal et al.
- Affiliation:
- Tzora Veterinary Clinic
Plain-English summary
Researchers looked into whether a pedometer could help spot lameness in dairy cows before any visible signs showed up. They tracked the activity levels of the cows and found that if a cow's activity dropped by 5% or more compared to its average over the past ten days, it was examined for lameness. Out of 46 cows that showed reduced activity, 38 were found to be lame, and notably, 21 of those cows showed a drop in activity about a week to ten days before any signs of lameness appeared. This means that the pedometer was effective in identifying a significant number of lame cows earlier than traditional methods. Overall, the pedometer proved to be a useful tool for early detection of lameness in dairy cows.
Abstract
The efficacy of the pedometer to predict lameness earlier than the appearance of the clinical signs in a herd of dairy cows was investigated by correlating pedometric activity (PA) with clinical cases of lameness. The computer program was set to identify cows with a reduction of 5% or more in PA compared with their own previous 10 days average; these animals were then examined for clinical lameness. At the same time, every lame cow was checked to see if and when its PA was reduced. Forty-six cows showed a reduced PA; 38 cases of lameness were identified by either a reduction in PA or clinical observation; of these, 21 lame cows (45.7%) showed a reduction in PA of 5% or more, 7 to 10 days prior to the appearance of clinical signs. This cohort comprised 55.3% of the lame cows. In 92% of the lame cows identified by PA, the decrease was above 15%.
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Search related cases →Original publication: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17017653/