One step further: offering a foot trimming service to clients

The relationship between vets, farmers and foot trimmers has come increasingly into the spotlight. The potential for foot trimmers to be regulated by the RCVS and the need for us to really get to grips with lameness in the national herd has led to many vet practices to consider offering foot trimming services. Here we talk to George Jones of Priory Vets in Cardigan, west Wales, about the steps that led to them offering a full foot trimming service.

Q: Tell us about how the practice identified the opportunity to improve and develop the lameness services on offer to your clients.

A: We have always typically been called out to farms to see the odd lame cow that the farmer or their trimmer were struggling to treat. When we arrived on farm we were often faced with having to treat cows with poor handling facilities and as a last resort (too little too late), resulting in a poor prognosis for the cow. Vets were therefore usually reluctant to see lame cows. Sometimes farmers would seek advice within the context of their herd health review or a herd-wide lameness flare-up, but this might only involve the trimmer or the vets separately and we didn’t always have the opportunity to follow up.

We didn’t really have a direct relationship with local trimmers, mainly because they wouldn’t be on farm at the same time and everyone is very busy. As vets we were hesitant to ever question the trimmers’ technique as they do this work day-in-day-out, unlike vets, and we didn’t want to offend them. When I was TB testing herds, I would see lame cows and ask the famers about the issue. They would explain their difficulties getting hold of a trimmer regularly enough, particularly on small farms and beef herds.

I signed up for the Mobility Mentor training so that we could offer funded lameness workups to our Herd Advance farms. This sparked conversations with farmers about the lack of availability of highly qualified trimmers and got me really interested in working out how we could come up with a new model to tackle lameness as a whole on the farm. I knew involving trimmers would be key and felt that the existing demand among our clients would warrant employing our own in-house full-time trimmer. I was really keen that our trimmer would be highly qualified and would be able to integrate into our practice team.

So, we approached Sulwyn, a Welsh-speaker who was experienced with stock and part of the local farming community. We paid for his time to shadow two very experienced foot trimmers and to attend an in-house foot trimming course for newly graduated vets. He then did the Cattle Hoof Care Standards Board/Royal Agricultural University Level 4 course and continued to shadow Andrew for the next few months until our new mobile foot trimming crush and pickup were ready. Shortly afterwards, Andrew approached me saying he could see the benefit of trimmers being integrated into the veterinary team, and he was excited by the prospect of closer collaboration. He then also joined us, and as a result we now employ both Sulwyn and Andrew full-time.

Q: Can you talk about the relationships between the vets, vet techs and the trimmers and what you’ve been able to offer your clients because of the extended team?

A: Having trimmers in the practice has meant that we are talking a lot more about lameness on a day-to-day basis. With the addition of three vet techs who are mobility scoring, this has enabled us to identify lame cows sooner, provide a trim list to farmers and to monitor progress. The trimmers will often work together on large numbers of cows or more challenging beef herds, which is good for morale, efficient for the farmer and means the cow spends less time in the crush. We are also able to work together on surgical cases such as radical claw resections or digit amputations.

Through the Herd Advance scheme, a Healthy Feet Programme was offered to seven of our clients which included a quarterly whole herd mobility score, lesion identification and a workable action plan for improving lameness. Having in house trimmers has been a huge advantage as we were able to offer trimming as part of the action plan and confidently identify the main lesions seen on the farm. 

Q: If a practice was considering reviewing their approach to working alongside trimmers what advice would you give them?

A: Working closely with trimmers as a team approach is a must if we want to get on top of lameness. I feel the vets, trimmers and vet-techs gain a huge amount from discussing the causes of lameness, instead of constantly trimming cows without putting measures in place to prevent lameness in the first place. Offering this package of services as a practice has been well received by farmers and we’ve had good take-up.

It may not necessarily be the case that you need to bring trimmers in-house as we have done and I’m sure it may be possible to build and maintain very good effective working relationships with local independent trimmers. One of our initial motivations was to add capacity to the lack of trimmer availability locally but by employing our trimmers directly we have built a very cohesive team based on understanding and respect which is beneficial for all involved.

Vets and trimmers discuss techniques and lesion identification together as equals which enables them to openly & holistically discuss the farm as a whole. A regular independent mobility score to monitor success is a good way for the vets, trimmers, and farmers to see progress.

Q: Is it inevitable that lameness will continue at its current levels or are you hopeful that we can work together to make significant improvements – what can our long-term ambitions be?

A: Working closely with trimmers and being more involved in lameness as vets has certainly been beneficial for our practice and our work. I have also found that making best use of vet techs for regular data collection makes a big difference in enabling us to quickly identify issues and will also hopefully soon provide the evidence to evaluate any significant improvement of our practice approach.

Initiatives such as the Healthy Feet programme and the CHCSB/BCVA Lantra courses to upskill farmers and vets will raise awareness and hopefully motivate change. Offering a free-of-charge whole-herd mobility score (e.g. at a TB test) is a great first step to start discussion around lameness. Easily accessible digital foot trimming records are really useful for us and using standardised lesion names helps avoid confusion.

A good goal would be for all farmers to have the knowledge and means to treat cows quickly and effectively, and specifically to know the level of lameness on their farm and to be able to benchmark against what the best farms are achieving so that they can set targets to also reach a good standard.

*Content courtesy of BCVA’s Cattle Quarterly