Genetic correlations between claw health and feet and leg conformation traits in Swedish dairy cows

Abstract

With the fast increase in dairy herd size over the last decades, and a change from tie stalls to free stalls it is imperative from an economic and welfare point of view to have a good claw health reducing the risk for lameness. Of Swedish Red (SR) cows and Swedish Holstein (SH) 5.9 % and 8.1 %, respectively, are culled due to feet and leg diseases (Swedish Dairy Association, 2008) and genetic selection for better claw health is desirable. Among most common claw diseases occurring as herd problems dermatitis (DD) and heel horn erosion HH are hygiene related diseases and sole haemorrhage (SH) and sole ulcer (SU) are related to laminitis which is a metabolic and trauma related disease. An earlier Swedish study failed to use reports from veterinary practitioners on lameness and proposed to use records collected at maintenance claw trimmings (Ral et al., 1995). Claw diseases, locomotion, abnormal claw conformation and treatments have now been recorded by Swedish claw trimmers on a voluntary, national basis since 2002. Heritabilities of claw diseases are low, as for other diseases, ranging from 1 to 10 % across traits (Naeslund et al., 2008, Van der Waaij et al., 2005). However, conformation traits for feet and leg have considerably higher heritability (Boelling et al., 2007; PerezCabal & Alenda, 2002; Wiggans et al., 2004). The aim of this study was to investigate correlations between claw diseases and feet and leg conformation traits as an alternative for indirect genetic selection for improved claw health. 2. Material and Methods