Lockerbie: Healthy Feet in your dairy herd

Join us for this interactive workshop with Nick Bell from Herd Health Consultancy and representatives from Ark Vets to explore how to identify, treat and reduce lameness in the dairy herd. 

Lameness can have a serious impact on both the health and profitability of your herd. Early detection and prompt and effective treatment is key for maintaining hoof health so knowing how to pick up the early signs and treat your herd is vital.

At this practical and interactive workshop, you will:

• Take part in a mobility scoring exercise, learning about the uses of mobility scoring and how to score accurately
• Discuss foot trimming and learn how to tackle lameness
• Explore the current best practices for trimming, block selection and the use of hoof trimmers

AHDB’s Healthy Feet Lite programme helps you reduce the number of lame cows on your farm by identifying and applying the right management techniques.

Please note children under the age of 16 and dogs are not allowed at the event, even if they are staying in the car. Click here to find out more about AHDBs health and safety guidelines for events.

About Potstown

Potstown, near Lockerbie on the Scottish border, is own and managed by brothers, Gareth and David Owen, along with their father Tom. The family first moved to the farm in 1988 and have been gradually growing the size of both the herd and the farm since. They have recently changed half the herd to Jersey and run a robotic milking system.

About Strategic Dairy Farms

Strategic dairy farms aim to help farmers learn from each other through regular on-farm meetings where key performance data is shared and what the best farmers are doing is showcased.

They form part of the Optimal Dairy Systems programme which aims to help dairy farmers reduce costs and increase efficiency by focusing on either a tight block or all-year-round calving system.

The growing network of strategic dairy farms have calculated KPIs for their enterprises which are shared at meetings and published online. These are physical and financial performance measures that are critical to success. Farmers can benchmark their businesses against these KPIs to help identify areas for improvement.