A new study plans to shed light on the causes of lameness and reduced mobility in dairy cows. This issue currently costs the UK dairy industry £250 million a year as over half of UK cattle are affected.The ground-breaking project will be a collaborative effort between the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), Scottish Rural College (SRUC) and University of Liverpool.
Researchers from these institutions will focus particularly on improving our understanding of the factors that cause claw horn disruption lesions (CHDL) in dairy cattle, which has never been studied in such depth before. CHDL is the most prevalent condition behind impaired mobility and related pain in dairy cows both across the UK and the globe. The project therefore has the potential to considerably improve animal health and welfare through the development of efficient management practices, new breeding tools and novel pharmaceutical interventions.
The study will involve closely monitoring and recording relevant data on pregnant dairy cows from 60 days before calving to the first half of lactation. It will also investigate genetic resistance to CHDL by genetically profiling individual animals and performing advanced genomic and functional genomic analyses. Finally, optimal breeding strategies will be developed with the aim of providing the means to breed genetically resistant to lameness cattle.
Experts in the the fields of animal science, veterinary medicine, genetics, biotechnology, bioinformatics, molecular pathology, immunology, microscopy and epidemiology will be drawn upon to carry out this work.
Funding for the £1 million project, which is scheduled to run for three years, comes from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). The initial stage of identifying and gaining permission from farms raising the animals has already been completed.
Follow the link to read the article in full on the RVC website