Think back to the last cow you sent to market. If you peeled back her hide, what would you find? Bruising? Injection site lesions? Tissue damage? Would you be proud to say that cow came from your dairy?

In the U.S., even on well-managed dairies, there’s a good chance that digital dermatitis (DD) is present. It is highly contagious and if left unchecked can cause painful ulcerations that often lead to lameness. Common practices for controlling DD have been limited to footbaths and topical treatment of severe lesions with no clearly established guidelines for optimal management.

Preparing cows’ feet for the transition to a robotic system should be a fairly easy task for most dairy farms to accomplish well in advance. Usually the system and tools needed are already in place to prepare hooves before the robots start, so there are just a few straightforward things to do to ensure hooves are protected during and after transition.

Q. Why is this a top resource article? "Research continues to focus on ways to alleviate heat stress through genetic advancement and knowledge around genes that are important in alleviating heat load, hormonal manipulation such as the use of human chorionic gonadotropin to improve pregnancy retention, feed additives that potentially reduce core body temperature and, lastly, advancements in cooling systems and areas of opportunities with cooling such as dry cows." —Todd Bilby, Merck Animal Health The Temperature-Humidity Index (THI) is a valuable measure that you know when cows are becoming heat-stressed and to what degree so you can use cooling methods appropriately. Heat stress is caused by a combination of temperature, relative humidity, solar radiation, air movement and precipitation. The majority of studies on heat stress in livestock focus on the two main environmental stressors: temperature and relative humidity (RH).