Assessing farmer awareness of digital dermatitis prevalence in Danish dairy herds

Digital dermatitis (DD) is a major and widespread contagious disease of the feet in dairy cattle. 1-4 The disease may cause lameness in cows, 5 decreased milk yield and excessive use of antibiotics. 6 7 As an infected host plays a key role in the epidemiology of DD, early detection of DD-affected co...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Veterinary record 2018-03, Vol.182 (11), p.325-325
Main Authors: Oliveira, Victor H S, Sørensen, Jan Tind, Thomsen, Peter T
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agreements
Agriculture
awareness
Cattle
Dermatitis
digital dermatitis
Estimates
farmer
Farmers
Farms
hoof health
Ratios
Researchers
Survival analysis
Veterinary medicine
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Summary:Digital dermatitis (DD) is a major and widespread contagious disease of the feet in dairy cattle. 1-4 The disease may cause lameness in cows, 5 decreased milk yield and excessive use of antibiotics. 6 7 As an infected host plays a key role in the epidemiology of DD, early detection of DD-affected cows followed by adequate preventive and curative measures can reduce the spread of the disease between animals. 8 In order for the farmer to acknowledge DD as a problem, he/she must be able to detect the disease. 10 The authors included a range of commercial herds managed with systems typical of Danish dairy production, such as cubicle loose housing with solid or slatted concrete floors, and conventional or carousel milking parlours. The scatter plot with an increasing LOESS curve indicated that in herds with lower DD prevalences determined by the researcher, farmers mostly overestimated the DD prevalence with better agreements with values determined by the researcher; in contrast, in herds with higher DD prevalences determined by the researcher, the farmers underestimated and agreed less with the researcher ( Fig 2 ). Prev Vet Med 2010; 97: 1-8. doi:10.1016/j.prevetmed.2010.07.011 8 Döpfer D, Holzhauer M, Boven M. The dynamics of digital dermatitis in populations of dairy cattle: model-based estimates of transition rates and implications for control.
ISSN:0042-4900
2042-7670
DOI:10.1136/vr.104515