Provita Animal Health

The demonstration hosted by Pat Lenehan and his nephew Pete was well attended by farmers with lameness problems on their farm.  Not all of them footbath regularly or have a system set up to allow regular footbathing.  Pat and Pete milk 70 cows in Crossmaglen.  When they were installing a new parlour, they contacted Provita rep Kieran Donnelly to arrange a no obligation visit to action Provita’s Hoofsure Endurance Lameness Programme HELP to advise them on their footbathing set-up.  They wanted a system that would minimise disruption to milking and allow good cow flow.  Following consultation with Kieran, the pre-cast concrete footbath set-up allowed a full side of cows to exit the parlour before they reached the footbath which allows more dominant cows to walk through more rapidly and the more hesitant cows to have space and go through at their own pace.  Cows are footbathed at every evening milking.  When Kieran scored the herd for digital dermatitis (DD) as part of the HELP service, the vast majority had DD.  A protocol with high concentration of Hoofsure Endurance footbath solution was put in place for 2 months with positive results visible within 2 weeks into the programme – active DD reduced from 85% to 20%%.  Once DD levels were low with infection pressure down, the concentration of Hoofsure Endurance used each evening has reduced.

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