GEORGE F.W. HAENLEIN
Extension Dairy Specialist
University of Delaware
NEWARK, Del. Do you
have laminids in your animals? If
you answer “yes’* to the following
list of possibilities, you can expect
the presence of this condition in
your herd.
1. Are your cows in a loose
housing or stanchion bam system
where they standa lot on wet, cold
concrete and in manure that isn't
removed daily?
2. Are your cows lying down on
wet, cold and manure-covered
concrete alleys instead of in dry
free stalls or dry, bedded areas,
pens or stalls?
3. Are your cows standing in a
muddy barnyard and lying down
there instead of on dry, grassy pas
ture?
4. When going to and from the
pasture, do your cows walk again
and again over the same worn,
muddy lanes that you have tried to
stabilize with gravel, crushed
stones, or worse crushed cin
der?
5. Do your cows eat silage or
hay from a trough that has remain
ed for a long time in the same
muddy place in the middle of a
field?
6. Do your cows go a long time
between hoof-trimmings?
7. Does more than one out of 10
cows show symptoms of lame-
ness?
8. Ate you a good dairy farmer
as evidenced by the daily milk
production level of your cows and
your feeding levels of concen
trates?
Older dairy farmers who used
to work with horses know the term
laminitis. It’s typically applied to
horses as the conditidn also
known as “founder.”
However, new research has
shown that the condition applies
as much maybe more to
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Do You Have Laminitis In Your Herd?
dairy cattle. Its incidence isn’t fol
ly appreciated, because laminitis
isn’t a contagious disease like
mastitis or tuberculosis.
Laminitis occurs as a conse
quence of management, especially
nutritional management, often in
the better herds, and to a large ex
tent, it’s preventable.
It has been established that lam
initis in dairy cows is the result of
many factors. Nutrition is the
dominant one.
Cows show various signs of dif
ficult and painful walking beha
vior. Blood spots, hemorrhage,
open sores and discoloration of
the hoof, sole, claw and between
the claws are visible. Also, the
sole is softer, wears more and in
jures more easily against hard
pointed objects, stones and peb
bles.
Lameness is usually not just
simple foot injury, although the
condition is aggravated by a slop
py, wet environment. Evidence in
dicates that the symptoms of lam
initis lameness are first and fore
most the result of inappropriate
changes in the rumen of dairy
cows, mostly in high-producing
cows.
Thus, laminitis is among the
preventable management dis
eases. better called disorders, such
as ketosis, milk fever, enterotox
cmia, parakeratosis and low milk
fat syndrome.
These disorders share the com
mon denominator of inappropriate
feeding of the rumen of cows. Ex
cept for milk fever, all of the
above ailments have two things in
common—excessive concentrate
energy feeding in relation to the
necessary balance with sufficient
fiber content, and not enough
length of fiber in the daily diet
The energy excess and shortage
of fiber produces a shift in rumen
pH, resulting in a condition called
acidosis. Acidosis is caused by an
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This causes the release of endo
toxins and histamine, which affect
the delicate blood vessels of the
claw and laminar tissues of the
hoof. The result is heightened
pressure, blood clots, hemorrhage,
injury to the tissues, hoof deter
ioration, painful walking and
lameness (laminitis).
For dairy goats and sheep the
conditions and causes are very
similar to those of dairy cows. In
fact, the cure tried for die so-call
ed “overeating” disease familiar to
breeders of high-producing dairy
goats often is vaccination against
enterotoxemia when what is called
for is correction of acidosis from
faulty feeding regimes.
Faulty feeding of heifers has
been linked to laminitis. When
heifers arc pushed to grow fast and
gain more than 1.7 pounds daily in
order to reach 24-month first calv
ing. they are likely to have claw
sole hemorrhages stemming from
acidosis.
Other causes of acidosis in
clude: 1) high amounts of starch
and sugar in the ration without
enough salivary buffering from
fiber rumination; 2) “slug” feed
ing of concentrates instead of se
veral meals per day; 3) finely
chopped silage or haylage; 4) ab
sence of baled hay; 5) and, in the
case of exceeding the SO percent
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out-of-balance proliferation of
lactobacillus, streptococcus and
other bacterial species, accompan
ied by the simultaneous reduction
in the numbers of beneficial bac
teria.
limit of concentrate-to-roughage
ratio when feeding very high-pro
ducing dairy animals, die absence
of buffer supplements to the ration
like sodium bicarbonate, mag
nesium oxide and calcium car
bonate.
In addition to acidosis in the ru
men from faulty dairy rations, it is
also known that excessive
amounts of protein in the ration
produce histamine and high levels
of rumen ammonia and blood
urea, all of which affect and as
sault the microcirculation of the
claw tissues.
On the other hand, in some stu
dies, rations supplemented with
zinc have been beneficial. This
augmentation has resulted in
stronger hoof texture, fewer heel
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Dairy farmers will have the
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cracks and improvement to inter
digital dermatitis overall, im
proved hoof health.
The primary drawbacks, how
ever, are excessive amounts of
energy from the now much debat
ed class of “non-structural” or “ra
pidly” fermentable or soluble car
bohydrates, formerly known
simply as starch and sugars.
These aren’t listed in feed con
tent tables, and you can expect to
learn a lot about this in the coming
months as a way toward mote pro
fitable dairying. You will also be
hearing more about the prevention
or correction of the costly lam
initis cases in your herd, because
in terms of economic losses, lam
initis ranks right behind mastitis
and reproduction.
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cow for the improvement of the
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The free Dairy Plan is now
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