Vet World Vol.17 August-2024 Article - 15
Research Article
Veterinary World, 17(8): 1789-1797
https://doi.org/10.14202/vetworld.2024.1789-1797
Dairy farmworkers’ knowledge of the causes, risk factors, and clinical signs of bovine lameness
2. Department of Agriculture and Animal Health, University of South Africa, Roodepoort, Johannesburg, South Africa.
Background and Aim: Observing lameness in dairy cows is the primary animal-based indicator of their overall welfare and health status. The study evaluated dairy farmworkers’ understanding of bovine lameness’s causes, risk factors, and clinical symptoms in Kwa-Zulu Natal Province, South Africa.
Materials and Methods: Eleven dairy farms provided the data through questionnaires. The questionnaire consisted of five sections: The first section (A) gathered demographic data (age, gender, experience, level of study), and the second section (B) dealt with farm specifics (size, grazing method). Sections C, D, and E cover farm workers’ knowledge of lameness risk factors, clinical signs of lameness, and treatment and management of lameness, respectively.
Results: About 85.5% of horses experience lameness during summer, contrasted to 15% during autumn. The seasonal results were statistically significant (p < 0.05). 93% of respondents identified a decrease in appetite as the most common sign of lameness, while 94% reported reduced milk yield and 90% increased lying time; a significant correlation was found between awareness of clinical signs and localities (p < 0.05). Age, gender, and occupation level (p < 0.05) were identified as contributing factors to the movement problem in the dairy industry, necessitating training for farm workers to enhance their knowledge.
Conclusion: Although there is a satisfactory (81%) understanding of lameness by farm workers. There is still need for improvement, hence, farm worker training and retraining are essential for managing and reducing the instances of bovine lameness.
Keywords: foot rot, increased lying time, knowledge, lameness, milk yield, reduced milk yield.
How to cite this article: Matshetsheni S and Jaja IF (2024) Dairy farmworkers’ knowledge of the causes, risk factors, and clinical signs of bovine lameness, Veterinary World, 17(8):1789-1797.
Received: 2024-02-05 Accepted: 2024-07-15 Published online: 2024-08-20
Corresponding author: E-mail:
DOI: 10.14202/vetworld.2024.1789-1797
Copyright: Matshetsheni, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http:// creativecommons.org/ publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
