Claw care: Trim cows every week?

The regular claw care is crucial for dairy cows. There are various ways to organize it - either as a herd trim or with a few cows at regular intervals. Two perspectives.

For regular claw care, there are two strategies: Either dairy cow holders trim the entire herd three to four times a year. Or they focus on narrow care intervals and plan, for example, weekly appointments for individual animal care. What arguments speak for and against cow-specific appointments?

Yes, says Michael Pohl, a state-certified claw trimmer at the Cooperative Claw Trimmers Cooperative from Saxony. No, says Michael Kreher, a veterinarian at the Veterinary Group Practice Bad Liebenwerda in Brandenburg.

PRO

The individual animal-based claw care is significantly more helpful than a herd trim, which applies arbitrarily to all animals. Even though claw problems can never be completely eliminated, individual animal care better meets the needs of each individual cow. Each animal should be trimmed twice a year on average.

Since this form of claw care is also preventive, not only lame but mostly healthy animals are trimmed. It is usually easier for many farmers to find lame animals. However, since each cow receives a fixed next care appointment after its trim, it is easy in the long run to also select healthy animals. It is a matter of mindset to adjust to the system.

I recommend weekly appointments that align with lactation days and the needs of the individual animal. For example, each cow receives a care trim when drying off to be as fit as possible for the upcoming birth. With the goal of two annual trims, she would be brought back for claw care after six months. Then she would be about 120 days in milk. If it turns out that this cow needs care earlier, the interval for the individual animal can be shortened.

With an individual care interval, the needs of each individual cow are better met.

At least two months should elapse between two trims for the horn to grow. Cows that require such short care intervals usually make up only a small percentage. Therefore, it is not worthwhile to trim the entire herd three to four times a year just to meet the needs of the few animals. Ultimately, claw care is always associated with stress.

To minimize setup times, I recommend that farms invest in a claw care stand. This way, external service providers can start directly and put 100% of their working capacity into claw care.

Another aspect that increases efficiency: A farm with 100 cows and a herd trim three times a year makes 300 claw trims per year. If the demand is adjusted individually by the animal, most animals would probably only need two claw trims per year. This results in a total of 200 trims, leaving 100 more for animals with higher needs. This way, farmers can work much more precisely on the claw health of their herd.

If a cow is acutely lame, it needs immediate treatment - even outside its care routine. I rarely observe a cow suddenly being lame. Most cows show initial symptoms several days before, so it should have been noticed by the scheduled weekly care appointment.

It is the duty of every livestock owner to observe their cows in order to react early. The crucial advantage of close care intervals: the caregiver must deal with the success of their measure and see how the trimmed animal develops. The goal is healthy claws and cows.

CONTRA

The best system is useless if it is not implementable. The care itself is always specific to the animal - regardless of how the appointments are organized. But "individual animal-based" means setting the care intervals individually for each cow. This requires personnel. With an employed claw trimmer, short weekly appointments could be well implemented. However, even in larger farms, external service providers often carry out claw care. For them, it is much more efficient to trim entire groups or herds at once. This also makes setup times for setting up the care stand, entry and exit, and subsequent cleaning more worthwhile.

And what about family farms? They often have only one or no employees and find it difficult to implement regular times for claw care distributed over the week. Especially during the field season, in case of illness and vacation absences. If one or two care appointments are missed, a backlog is difficult to catch up on.

The consistent care must also be affordable during the field season, illness, and vacation.

Even for cows, individual animal-based claw care poses challenges despite its good approach: Because whole groups are never in line, farmers have to select individual animals. The driving effort is stressful for cows and additional work for people - especially with different milking and feeding times. While a selection gate simplifies the process, there is still the need for resorting after care.

The question remains about the care needs: Claw care is a preventative measure so that animals do not become lame, not a treatment. With individual animal-based care, there is a risk of only bringing animals to the stand when they show claw problems. This does not correspond to the prophylactic approach. Additionally, the system tempts to "forget" inconspicuous animals because everything seems fine.

Especially with heifers and first-calvers, this happens quickly because they are usually good on their feet. But even with cows whose claws look good, they grow and need a care trim. For healthy claws, a period of four months is generally considered as the optimal care interval. And a predictable regularity emerges that speaks for a herd trim.

Acutely lame cows always need immediate treatment and relief. Farmers must be able to take care of this initial care themselves. With a fixed care appointment per week, the risk increases of postponing animals with emerging claw problems until the next care appointment.

For good animal health, a functioning system is needed. Only then will dairy cow holders consistently implement it. This also applies to herd trimming, but it takes place only three times a year depending on wear, not once or several times a week. In theory, individual animal-based claw care is good, but in my view, due to the constant shortage of personnel in many farms, it is not permanently feasible.