The effects of flunixin meglumine and hoof trimming on lying behavior, locomotion, and milk production in lame and nonlame lactating dairy cows

摘要

Hoof trimming is used to prevent and treat lamenessin dairy cows; however, hoof trimming itself increasesdaily time spent lying down, possibly due todiscomfort. We hypothesized that treatment of lameand nonlame cows with an anti-inflammatory analgesicdrug at the time of hoof trimming would mitigatediscomfort, thereby improving locomotion scores andreducing post-trimming increases in lying time. We furtherhypothesized that drug treatment would improvepost-trimming milk production. Our objective was todetermine the effects of treatment with the nonsteroidalanti-inflammatory drug flunixin meglumine (2.2 mg/kgof BW) at the time of hoof trimming on locomotion,lying times, and milk production in lame and nonlamelactating dairy cows. All cows were filmed for locomotionscoring 1 d before and 1, 8, and 28 d after hooftrimming. Daily time spent standing and lying wasrecorded for 4 d before and 4 wk after hoof trimming,and daily milk production was recorded for 1 wk beforeand 8 wk after trimming. Thirty minutes before hooftrimming, an intravenous injection of flunixin meglumine(n = 34) or isotonic sterile saline solution (n =34) was administered to each cow. Then, all cows hadtheir hooves trimmed using the Dutch method. Thesame treatment was repeated 24 h after hoof trimming.Cows were categorized using baseline locomotion scoresas lame (score ≥3/5) or nonlame (score <3/5). Drugtreatment did not affect post-trimming changes in locomotionscores, daily lying times, or milk production.In both treatment groups, most cows had the samelameness status (lame or nonlame) at baseline andafter treatment, and there was no difference betweengroups in the number of cows that changed lamenessstatus over time. Lame cows (n = 21) had no significantchanges in lying times over the course of the study,whereas nonlame cows (n = 47) had mean daily lyingtimes that were significantly higher than baseline all4 wk after trimming. Hoof trimming in nonlame cowsshould be scheduled for a time when increased lyingbehavior after trimming can be accommodated.