Locomotion biomechanic and scoring in dairy farms

Lameness is one of the biggest challenges in modern dairy farm around the world. Lameness is defined as the clinical manifestation of painful disorder resulting in deviation from normal gait or posture. It usually happens following claw lesions, although internal and external factors can affect it. Following herd size growing, farmer’s attention to individual cows has been reduced, therefore lameness diagnostic accrued in sever stages when treatments have the least effect on recovery and prevention. In this article, we try to understand pain basics and behavior changes related to it, using these changes in gait (i.e. back arch, walking speed, track up, head bob etc.) to assess different locomotion scoring systems and their use in dairy farms.