Relationship of lameness to body condition score, udder health and milk quality in crossbred dairy cattle

Three hundred and thirty-seven (337) crossbred dairy cows, at different stages of lactation and parity, from thirteen randomly selected dairy farms, were examined for locomotion score based on a five-point numerical scoring scale. Mild, moderate and severely lame cows were grouped together into the lame group and normal cows with locomotion score '0' into the healthy non-lame group. Body condition score (BCS) in all the animals was also evaluated on a five-point scale ranging from 1 to 5. Cows having cow hock rear leg view (RLV) were assigned score '1', and score '0' for those with normal hocks. A quarter foremilk (QFM) and cow composite (CC) sample were collected from each cow maintaining aseptic conditions. QFM was used to determine the quarter health status of the cows, and CC for estimation of somatic cell count (SCC) and milk composition, in terms of fat, SNF, protein and lactose. It was concluded that lame cows had significantly (P<0.01) more milk SCC and poor quarter health status as compared to healthy cows. RLV increased with increasing lameness, although it did not affect milk SCC and composition. Likewise, milk composition was not affected by lameness. Lame cows had poor BCS, indicating a negative correlation with lameness.