Preventive Veterinary Medicine

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1 Preventive Veterinary Medicine 88 (2009) Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Preventive Veterinary Medicine journal homepage: The effect of digital lesions and floor type on locomotion score in Dutch dairy cows K. Frankena a, *, J.G.C.J. Somers b,c, W.G.P. Schouten b, J.V. van Stek a, J.H.M. Metz d, E.N. Stassen c, E.A.M. Graat a a Quantitative Veterinary Epidemiology Group, Wageningen Institute of Animal Sciences, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 338, 6700 AH Wageningen, The Netherlands b Agrisystems and Environment, Agrotechnology and Food Innovations, Wageningen University and Research Centre, P.O. Box 17, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands c Department of Farm Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80151, 3508 TD Utrecht, The Netherlands d Farm Technology Group, Department of Agrotechnology and Food Sciences, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 17, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 14 October 2007 Received in revised form 25 August 2008 Accepted 28 August 2008 Keywords: Locomotion Claw lesion (Inter)digital dermatitis Floor system Welfare Straw yard This study describes the effects of floor system, digital dermatitis (DD) and interdigital dermatitis and heel-horn erosion (IDHE) on locomotion performance in 225 dairy cows of 12 commercial dairy herds. Nine herds were kept in cubicle houses with concrete passageways (either solid, slatted, or grooved concrete) and three herds were kept in straw yards. Animals were at most five times examined at monthly intervals for lesion severity of DD and IDHE and for locomotion score. Locomotion score was rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 5 (from normal to severe) and disturbed locomotion (lameness) was defined as a score 3. A logistic regression model was used to analyze the 943 observations using lameness (yes/no) as outcome variable. The proportion of observations scored as lame (locomotion score 3) increased from 18% 1 month after trimming to 29% at 4 months after trimming. Severe lesions of DD and IDHE were associated with a significantly higher proportion of lame cows. The proportion of animals with disturbed locomotion increased from 16% to 40% as the severity of DD increased and from 17% to 30% with increasing severity of IDHE lesions. Locomotion performance highly differed between the cubicle house and straw yard group. Only 1% of all gaits in straw yard cows were scored as lame, while in cubicle housed cows these percentages varied from 24% to 46% with grooved floors showing the highest average locomotion score. Due to the extreme low incidence of lameness in straw yards, the statistical analysis had to be restricted to observations on concrete floors (n = 744). The logistic regression model with lameness (yes/no) as dependent variable and random effects of cow and herd resulted in Odds Ratios for severe DD and IDHE of, respectively, 3.2 and 3.2, both significantly larger than unity. Cows housed at grooved concrete floors showed the highest OR of 6.5 compared to solid concrete floors. Recovery of lameness was poor as disturbance in gait lasted several months. ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction * Corresponding author. Tel.: ; fax: address: Klaas.Frankena@wur.nl (K. Frankena). Locomotion is an important issue in dairy loosehousing as it supports the cows main activities. The welfare implications of impaired locomotion are considerable (Whay et al., 1998) and 2-fold. Firstly, lame cows /$ see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi: /j.prevetmed

2 K. Frankena et al. / Preventive Veterinary Medicine 88 (2009) might experience severe pain and discomfort (O Callaghan, 2002). Secondly, and less recognized is the suppression of behavioral activities due to reduced mobility (Galindo and Broom, 2002). To supply their needs in feeding, milking, resting and so on, cows in cubicle houses have to walk about 1 km or more per day (Kempkens and Boxberger, 1987). Besides its welfare implications, lameness has a significant economic impact. It has been rated as the third largest health-related economic loss in dairy farming, after fertility problems and mastitis (Enting et al., 1997). Several studies have been conducted to estimate the incidence of clinical lameness. Estimates of mean annual herd incidence of lameness over the last 10 years range from 7% (Alban, 1995), 22% (Whay et al., 2002), 38% (Kossaibati and Esslemont, 2000), 55% (Clarkson et al., 1996) up to 69% (Hedges et al., 2001). This large variability in reported lameness incidences is likely to result from an increase of lameness at dairy farms with time, different scoring methods and different sources of lameness data. As lameness has a multifactorial origin, substantial research has been done to identify and quantify risk factors involved in it (e.g. Gröhn et al., 1992; Alban, 1995; Hughes et al., 1997). The vast majority of all lameness cases originate from claw disorders. As a consequence, presence and severity of claw disorders and its causal conditions have been surveyed (e.g. Enevoldsen et al., 1991; Bergsten, 1995; Somers et al., 2005a). Nevertheless, observational studies into the relationship of locomotion and claw disorders as such are scarce. Manske et al. (2002) related claw lesions and lameness occurrence and showed that among cows with claw disorders (72%) only a small percentage was diagnosed clinically lame (5%). A similar study of Frankena et al. (1991) showed that less than 1% of cows with affected claws were lame. Both studies, however, had a cross-sectional design suitable for prevalence estimation at large scale but did not include a thorough gait analysis. For a better understanding of the role of claw disorders in the development of disturbed locomotion, quantification by a detailed monitoring of both phenomena over a certain time period is essential. Digital dermatitis (DD) and interdigital dermatitis and heel-horn erosion (IDHE) are infectious lesions with a persisting character and are associated with pain and discomfort (Somers et al., 2005a). Therefore, these lesions are of major concern for animal welfare. The course of IDHE consists of two stages, starting with an inflammation of the skin with Dichelobacter (Bacteroides) nodosus eventually in combination with Fusobacterium necrophorum. In chronic infections superficial erosion of the heel horn will occur (Bergsten, 1997). DD is suspected to be a polymicrobial infection in which anaerobic spirochetes of the genus Treponema are frequently found (Zuerner et al., 2007) but also Guggenheimella bovis might be involved (Schlafer et al., 2008). Wells et al. (1999) observed that lactating cows housed on grooved floors had an almost 3-fold increased risk for DD compared to animals housed on a textured concrete floor. They also found a 2-fold increase of risk for cows housed on slatted floors compared to textured concrete floor. Housing type (e.g. cubicle or straw yard) and floor properties (e.g. slatted or solid, wetness, and softness) affect easiness of movement (Phillips and Morris, 2000; Benz et al., 2002; Somers et al., 2003). Telezhenko and Bergsten (2005) reported slatted concrete as the most slippery surface. Slippery surfaces alter the gait and increase the duration of floor contact due to shortened and overlapping strides which may affect the wear on sole and white lines (Faull et al., 1996; Telezhenko and Bergsten, 2005). Animals on such floors may easily slip and lameness due to injuries may be induced. Especially concrete, having a hard texture, strains high mechanical pressure on the claw, leading to signs of disturbed locomotion (Van der Tol et al., 2003). The aim of this observational longitudinal study was to investigate the effect of severity of DD and IDHE and of floor type (solid, slatted or grooved concrete floors and straw yards) on locomotion of cows kept in loose housing systems. 2. Materials and methods 2.1. Study population The data for this study were collected from 240 Holstein Friesian dairy cows of 12 commercial dairy herds in The Netherlands. Detailed information on the selection procedure of study herds and animals and their characteristics is given in Table 1 and elsewhere (Somers et al., 2005b). Briefly, the 12 herds were selected by convenience from a larger population of 86 herds that were used for prevalence estimation (Somers et al., 2003) and had to meet the criteria of a level of claw problems comparable to the Dutch national average level (Somers et al., 2005b), herd size >35 cows, pasture in summer, Holstein Friesian as breed, farmers expectation that selected animals were not culled within the coming year, and farmers willingness to collaborate. Each herd supplied 20 dairy cows. Table 1 Descriptive data, stratified to floor type, of 12 Dutch dairy herds participating in a longitudinal study into the relation between claw lesions, floor type and locomotion scores Floor type Slatted concrete (n = 3) Solid concrete (n = 3) Grooved concrete (n = 3) Straw yard (n =3) Average herd size (n) Average parity Average 305-DIM yield (kg) Stage of lactation (% of animals) 0 60 days days >120 days

3 152 K. Frankena et al. / Preventive Veterinary Medicine 88 (2009) Equal numbers were randomly (by computer software) selected from parity classes 1, 2, 3, and 4. Nine herds were kept in cubicle houses with concrete passageways and three herds in straw yards. All straw yard herds had a slatted area only in front of the feed bunk. Three herds were equipped with a grooved floor which consists of flat concrete elements with grooves right-angled to the span of the element and were designed as emission-reducing floor systems due to rapid urine drainage to the slurry pit (Swierstra et al., 2001) Data collection Interdigital dermatitis and heel-horn erosion (IDHE) and digital dermatitis (DD) are mainly found (92%) in the lateral claws of hind legs (Murray et al., 1996). Therefore, both lateral hind claws of selected animals were examined monthly for presence of DD and IDHE by lifting and cleaning the feet for inspection. The lesions were scored by the second author (well trained by claw specialists of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine of Utrecht University, The Netherlands) for severity as described by Döpfer et al. (1997) and categorized into three classes. For IDHE the aggregation categories over both legs were: slight (scores 0 2), moderate (scores 3 and 4) and severe (scores 5 8). Digital dermatitis was categorized in no DD (score 0 in both legs), slight (score 1 in one or both legs) and severe (score 2 in one or two legs). Other digital lesions (i.e. interdigital hyperplasia and interdigital phlegmon) and lesions of the claw horn such as sole ulceration and white line disease were also recorded if visible without any horn trimming. As part of the normal management procedures, animals of the nine herds with concrete floors were treated with footbaths containing formalin or copper sulfate, average frequency was once per month. Some animals, diagnosed with DD, received additional trimming and an antibiotic spray as individual treatment. Interdigital dermatitis and heel-horn erosion respond mainly to trimming and thus no additional measures were taken as described for DD. Locomotion was scored after each claw inspection according to the system of Manson and Leaver (1988). The nine possible scores (scale 1 5 with half-points in between) cover the broad range between perfect gait (score 1) and extreme lameness (score 5). Instead of on-site scoring, locomotion of each animal was videotaped with a digital camera. Locomotion was recorded while the cow walked on the concrete passageways behind the feeding bunk or between the cubicles on one of the three concrete floor systems. Cows in straw yards were also assessed while walking on a solid concrete floor. During the recording, other cows were prevented to enter the aisle. The second author assessed all the video recordings afterwards. The study period started September 2002 and ended May Before the start all selected animals were examined three times during 3 months to train the observer in the methodology of scoring locomotion, scoring claw lesions and videotaping. At the start of the housing period (September/October), claws of all selected cows were trimmed by professionals according to the Dutch trimming method (Toussaint-Raven et al., 1985). Heel-horn damage was repaired and claw shape properly restored. It is therefore assumed that studied claws were more or less in a comparable state when data recording started 2 weeks later. From that time on, animals were examined five times with monthly intervals. For all animals, parity and days in milk (DIM) were recorded prior to the study period and this was used as such in the analysis. Days in milk was categorized as follows: 0 60 days (pre-top), days (top) and >120 days (past-top). As animals were already selected 4 months before the study started to allow training of the observer, it showed that 15 selected animals (7 kept in straw yards, 4 kept on slatted concrete and 2 each for solid and grooved concrete floors) were culled from the herd before start of the actual study. In total, 943 locomotion scores with accompanying claw lesion observations of 225 animals were available for analysis. Not all cows had five observations due to drying off or culling during the study period. The number of observations per cow was 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 times for, respectively, 124, 48, 32, 14 and 7 cows. The number of examinations per month was between 179 and 196 (Table 2) Data analysis For analysis, locomotion scores were expressed in qualitative terms: normal (score <3, coded as 0) and clearly disturbed (lame: score 3 or higher, coded as 1). Data were analyzed using logistic regression using the model: LogitðY ¼ 1jXÞ¼b 0 þ b 1 IDHEþb 2 DDþb 3 FLOORþb 4 PARþb 5 DIMþb 6 OBS where Y = probability of having a disturbed locomotion given a set of independent variables (X), b 0 = intercept, b 1 b 6 = regression coefficients of independent variables, IDHE = fixed effect of IDHE cow score (slight, moderate, severe), DD = fixed effect of DD cow score (no, moderate, severe), FLOOR = fixed effect of floor type (slatted concrete, solid concrete, grooved concrete), PAR = fixed effect of parity number (1, 2, 3, 4), DIM = fixed effect of days in milk (0 60 days, days, >120 days), and OBS = fixed effect of observation number (1 5). The model included also a random cow and a random herd effect to account for the multiple observations on each cow and the potential dependence of cows within herds. Non-significant variables (P > 0.05) were removed from the model one by one, based on the highest P-value, and the model was refit. Regression coefficients of the reduced model were compared with the output of the full model to evaluate confounding. Confounding was deemed present when regression coefficients changed at least 25%, or 0.1 if parameter estimates were smaller than j0.4j. Twoway interactions between remaining variables were evaluated as well. Because model diagnostic tests are not available for random effect models, the model fit was assessed by taking the final model without random effects. Fit of the model was then based on the Hosmer Lemeshow statistic. Furthermore, by default, seven quadrature points (integration points) are used to compute the log-likelihood in the random effect model. Varying quadrature points

4 K. Frankena et al. / Preventive Veterinary Medicine 88 (2009) Table 2 Distribution of locomotion scores and lameness over digital dermatits (DD) and interdigital dermatitis and heel-horn erosion (IDHE) classes, floor types and observation number of 943 observations of 225 Dutch dairy cows participating in a longitudinal study into the relation between claw lesions, floor type and locomotion scores Effect Class Number of observations (%) Arithmetic average locomotion score DD No 530 (56.2) Slight 198 (21.0) Severe 215 (22.8) IDHE Slight 379 (40.2) Moderate 310 (32.9) Severe 254 (26.9) Floor type Solid concrete 259 (27.5) Slatted concrete 234 (24.8) Grooved concrete 251 (26.6) Straw yard 199 (21.1) Observation number (20.8) (20.7) (20.0) (19.0) (19.5) % lame (score 3) provides evidence for robustness of the model. The final results were therefore also obtained by running the model with 20 quadrature points. Analyses were carried out using the xtmelogit command in STATA version 10 (StataCorp, 2007). 3. Results The distribution of locomotion scores is shown in Fig. 1. The majority (762/943 = 81%) of the observations showed a locomotion score of 2, 2.5 or 3. Of all 943 observations 220 (23.3%) showed a score of 3 or higher. Almost 37% (83/225) of the animals were recorded as being lame (score 3 or higher) at least once during the study period. Fig. 2a shows that about 68% of the 35 cows that were observed lame at the first examination were recorded as being lame for at least 4 months. Of the 161 cows that showed no disturbed locomotion at the first observation, 20 (15.6%) were diagnosed as becoming lame later during the study period (Fig. 2b). The proportion of observations showing lameness increased with DD score from 15.7% (no DD) to 39.5% (severe DD, Table 2). With increasing severity of IDHE, the proportion of lameness increased from 17.4% in slightly affected cows (IDHE score 1) to 25.5% and 29.5% in moderately and severely affected animals, respectively (Table 2). Large differences were observed in lameness percentages between floor types, straw yards showing only 1% of observations recorded as lame whereas it amounted to 40.6% at grooved concrete floors (Table 2). During the study period the arithmetic average locomotion score increased slightly and with that the proportion of lame cows, from 17.9% to 28.5% after 4 months. The presence of lesions other than DD and IDHE was also scored but the occurrence of those lesions was low at all examinations (less than 4%). The initial logistic regression model did not converge which was due to the very low percentage of disturbed locomotion in straw yards, indicating that straw yards were far best for animals to show normal locomotion. Removing the observations in straw yard herds reduced the dataset to herds kept on concrete floors with 744 observations. Then, the final model included the significant variables DD, IDHE and FLOOR. The effects of DIM, PAR and Fig. 1. Distribution of locomotion scores of 943 observations of 225 Dutch dairy cows, assessed at five observation moments with monthly intervals in a longitudinal study into the relation between claw lesions, floor type and locomotion scores.

5 154 K. Frankena et al. / Preventive Veterinary Medicine 88 (2009) Fig. 2. Development in locomotion score of 35 Dutch dairy cows that were diagnosed lame (a) and 161 cows diagnosed as having normal locomotion (b) at the first observation in a longitudinal study into the relation between claw lesions, floor type and locomotion scores. OBS were not significant. Estimates for IDHE were to some extent confounded by OBS, resulting in both variables being insignificant. OBS and IDHE were correlated (r = 0.6), with increasing OBS the severity score for IDHE also increased. OBS indicates time since last trimming and horn growth and wear in time may affect locomotion negatively. However, Somers et al. (2005b) found only minor effects of time after trimming on horn growth and wear. Therefore, we decided to keep IDHE in the model and to delete OBS from it. Two-way interactions of the remaining variables were all non-significant. Estimates are presented in Table 3 as Odds Ratios with their 95% confidence intervals. Both severe DD and severe IDHE increased the risk of lameness significantly (P < 0.01) with ORs of 3.2 and 3.2, respectively. Here, prevalence of lameness per class of DD and IDHE are higher compared to Table 2 because straw yards, showing an extreme low prevalence of lameness, are excluded. From the three concrete floor types, grooved floors show a highly increased risk (OR = 6.5, P = 0.13) of disturbed locomotion compared to solid concrete floors. Table 3 The effect of digital dermatits (DD), interdigital dermatitis and heel-horn erosion (IDHE) and floor type on locomotion score in the final logistic random effects model of 744 a observations on 172 Dutch dairy cows (participating in a longitudinal study into the relation between claw lesions, floor type and locomotion scores) Effect Class Number of observations % lame (score 3) OR 95% CI P-value DD Without Ref Slight Severe IDHE Slight Ref Moderate Severe Floor type Solid concrete Ref Slatted concrete Grooved concrete Straw yard a All observations for straw yard had to be excluded due to convergence problems, Variance component of random cow effect: 9.71 (95% CI: ), Variance component of random herd effect: 1.45 (95% CI: ), Likelihood ratio test of random effect model compared to model without random effects: Chi 2 = (2 df, P < ).

6 K. Frankena et al. / Preventive Veterinary Medicine 88 (2009) A considerable cow effect was found, which is also clear from Fig. 2, because animals keep the same locomotion score over several months. The variance component of the herd effect was less than the cow effect (Table 3), but due to the fact that each herd was kept at one floor type, the standard errors of the coefficients for floor type increased dramatically, resulting in non-significant P-values for FLOOR. There was no effect of the number of quadrature points (7 (default) or 20), indicating robustness of the model. The Hosmer Lemeshow statistic of the model without random effects did not indicate lack of fit (P = 0.94). 4. Discussion Lameness may be seen as the most reliable indicator of pain and discomfort suffered from afflictions at the bovine limb (Potter and Broom, 1990). Lameness was evaluated in this study according to the locomotion score developed by Manson and Leaver (1988). The scoring system comprised an extensive range of scores, and is therefore well suited for monitoring changes in walking quality due to claw lesions. However, the more extreme scores (4 and higher) were hardly observed, resulting in average locomotion scores for various categories of the same variable that were close to each other making differences between categories difficult to interpret. Therefore, locomotion scores were dichotomized using score 3 as cut-off. Score 3 and higher represent cows that are clearly lame which should be noticed and treated by farmers, while it is anticipated that the majority of farmers will not take action by locomotion scores <3. Changing the cut-off to a locomotion score of 2.5 did not alter the analytical results largely, ORs for DD become larger, those for IDHE smaller and for FLOOR stay at the same level. Scoring of lameness has a low repeatability between observers due to subjective scoring and therefore multiple observations have to be done to obtain a reliable result (De Rosa et al., 2003). In this study, lesions and locomotion were observed by the second author and thus no interobserver variation did occur. Intra-observer variation may have occurred, but this is considered of minor importance due to the expertise and training of the observer in the study herds prior to the start and the well-described scoring systems for locomotion (Manson and Leaver, 1988), IDHE (Somers et al., 2005b) and DD (Döpfer, 1994; Döpfer et al., 1997). It was aimed to include herds that were comparable with regard to breed, housing, feeding and management in the selection of farms within each floor type. With an average herd size of 43 cows, herds in straw yards are somewhat smaller than those in cubicle housing (at average 60 cows). The smaller herd size is typical for straw yard farms in The Netherlands due to the more labor-intensive management on these farms. The effect of herd size on the level of lameness is however not consistent. Alban (1995) found higher levels of lameness in larger herds (over 70 animals) while Gröhn et al. (1992) found lower levels in herds over 100 animals. Compared to those studies the difference in herd size in our study is relatively small and is not expected to have an important impact on the outcomes. A large variety of claw lesions are implicated in lameness (Murray et al., 1996). To date, there is conflicting information on the real cause of lameness. Clarkson et al. (1996) stated that lesions of the claw horn (e.g. sole ulceration and white line disease) are the most responsible for lameness, while another study in the UK demonstrated that the skin lesions are most important (e.g. DD and interdigital phlegmon) (Offer et al., 2000). This study clearly indicates that severe lesions of DD deteriorate walking quality in dairy cattle. Other studies also reported a relationship between DD and lameness (Murray et al., 1996; Winckler and Willen, 1999; Offer et al., 2001). Also, more severe IDHE lesions were associated with impaired locomotion which is in accordance with Barkema et al. (1994) but in discordance with Logue et al. (1994) and Livesey et al. (1998). In this study, lameness appeared to have a persistent nature as the majority of cows that were observed lame at the beginning had a disturbed locomotion for the full 4 months. This result is consistent with Clarkson et al. (1996), who reported an average duration of 140 days per lameness incident. One explanation of the long duration might be that farmers are unable to detect all the actual lameness cases within their herd (compared to a trained observer) (Wells et al., 1993; Whay et al., 2002) and by that no treatment is applied. An alternative explanation is that cows have difficulties to recover from DD (Green and Döpfer, 2004). The persistent character of DD was also demonstrated in a complementary study using the same data set (Somers et al., 2005b). Ulcers of DD proved to be rather insensitive to claw trimming and frequent use of footbath. From the animals showing normal locomotion at the first observation 16% became lame in the next 4 months, which would yield a cumulative incidence of around 40% at lactational level. Barkema et al. (1994) found an incidence of 26% with a range of 9 49% between herds. The difference might be explained by differences in scoring methods, type of herds and a potential upward trend in time. Cows kept in straw yards walked far better than cows kept on concrete floors. This result agrees with work by Hughes et al. (1997) also indicating that lameness is dramatically reduced in straw yards. Not only the level of lameness was considerably lower in straw bedded systems in our study, but also the majority (81%) of locomotion scores were 2 in this housing system. The benefits of straw yard systems are dual. First, claw health is better (i.e. lower levels of DD, in our study 18% of observations in straw yard herds did show symptoms of DD, while this was around 50% in herds on concrete floors). Second, lower mechanical stresses are applied to the claw and consequently to the skin surrounding the claw while walking and standing on straw bedding (Scott, 1988). Biomechanical work evidenced that abnormal high pressures are applied to lateral hind claws while cows are walking on concrete surfaces (Van der Tol et al., 2003), and therefore overloading has been postulated an important factor in pathological processes resulting in lameness (Van der Tol, 2004). Backed up by the knowledge that loading is considerably reduced on soft surfaces, reported benefits of straw bedded areas and rubber-covered floors for

7 156 K. Frankena et al. / Preventive Veterinary Medicine 88 (2009) unrestricted locomotion are rational (Rowlands et al., 1983; Benz et al., 2002). Additionally, a straw bedded area provides a more comfortable lying environment than most cubicles, resulting in longer lying times which is beneficial for claw health (Singh et al., 1993; Leonard et al., 1994). In a British survey, it was concluded that lameness and poor locomotion were strongly related to poor cubicle design due to incorrect cubicle dimensions, curb-height, and placement of head-rail (Faull et al., 1996). Within the group of concrete floors, grooved floors showed the poorest results regarding locomotion. Potentially this may arise from the higher proportion of cows on grooved floors that were in early lactation (Table 1), but adding DIM to the model did not change the coefficients for the respective floor types nor was the interaction between floor type and DIM significant. It should be noted, however, that the large effect of the grooved floor (OR of 6.5) was not significant due to the fact that only three herds per floor type enrolled in the study. Removing floor type from the model did not change the coefficients for DD and IDHE and we decided to keep floor type in the model to demonstrate the (potential) negative effect on lameness scores. Further studies are indicated to better underpin the differences between these three commonly used concrete floor types in The Netherlands. Trimming restores normal claw shape and intends to improve load bearing within the claw (Toussaint-Raven et al., 1985). It is then expected that walking quality would substantially improve in cows with freshly trimmed claws. However, in our study the percentage of cows with a locomotion score of 3 or higher was considerably increased at observation number 3, which is about 2 months after trimming, indicating a rapid decrease of claw functioning with time. The poor walking performance may be partly explained by lesions that did not cure or reoccurred after trimming. 5. Conclusions This study shows that the claw-skin condition DD negatively affects locomotion in dairy cattle. Also severe IDHE was related to disturbed locomotion. Manifestation of gait disturbance was strongly reduced in straw yards compared to cubicle houses with concrete passageways. Recovery from lameness was poor as disturbance in gait endured for several months. Our study indicates that prevention of claw lesions and a non-concrete floor type are key issues in maintaining undisturbed locomotion and with that increasing animal welfare. Acknowledgements The authors thank the farmers for participating in the study. The Dutch Technology Foundation (STW) and the Ministry of Agriculture are acknowledged for funding this project. References Alban, L., Lameness in Danish dairy cows; frequency and possible risk factors. Prev. Vet. 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