APPLICATION OF SCORING SYSTEMS ON MONITORING OF DIGITAL DERMATITIS IN DAIRY COW AT A HERD LEVEL

To determine the utility of locomotion, lameness, lesion type, pain response, color and size scoring system as the qualitative indices for assessing the severity and prevalence of papillomatous digital dermatitis " PDD" and evaluating the individual therapeutic effect of solka hoofgel The Longitudinal field study was conducted on a 750 cows(230 lactating and 520 no lactating), commercial closed Holstein dairy herd in the vicinity of Tehran, Iran. These cows have had the experience of group treatment with topical spray solution of lincomycin HCL in previous year for control of PDD. Thirty eight lactating cows considered lame on the basis of locomotion scoring(1-5)with a range score of 2 - 5. Among these cows 17 cows were diagnosed with lesions of PDD in different stage of development on the basis of lameness score(0-3)with an average score of 2.05±0.68. Each cow was restrained in a chute and lesion(0-4), pain(0-2), color(0-3)and size(0-3)scores were done prior to application of hoofgel and holding in place by bandage . Treatment was repeated every 3 days in three turns . Lesions were re-scored on day 15 and the changes in each score between initial and final scoring were calculated and the comparision was made statistically using Paired "t" test. Significant difference in evaluated scores between initial and final course of PDD lesion showed apparent healing effect of hoofgel with noticeable improvement in lesion score(-1.70±0.81), pain score(-1.05±0.63), color score(-1.23±0.81)and lesion size(1.17±0.80)respectively. From the results of this study it is concluded that converting the subjective scores to a numerical index provides criteria to assess when to intervene as well as to assess the impact of any intervention designed to monitor alleviate lameness due to digital dermatitis in a cow or in a herd level.