Brent and Caralyn Morrison

For Caralyn and Brent Morrison, the changes they made to their farm system once completing the Healthy Hoof programme were instant.

"We took action straight away after completing the course. Instantly we took our dog away from the herd and had our staff focus on basic lameness issues while getting the cows in and during milking."

The Morrisons joined the Healthy Hoof programme in the summer of 2008 after being approached by Charlotte Glass, a DairyNZ developer.

"We have always had lameness issues on-farm, as at times the cows can be walking for three-quarters of an hour to get to the farm dairy," says Caralyn.

The Morrisons' Rai Valley farm near Marlborough has had many race issues over the past few years.

"Down the back of the farm we have races that are very prone to flooding. The Healthy Hoof programme has helped us realise how proactive we need to be with fixing the races after a big flood. We now put shale on the races once the flooding disappears, which has reduced our lameness issues considerably."

The knowledge the Morrisons got from the programme was very valuable. "We feel like our whole team properly understand lameness now. The programme has highlighted the natural issues on-farm that can cause lameness.

"Our team really got into the Healthy Hoof programme. We had an on-farm session with our vet where he brought lame hooves from the works and gave the team a creative lesson on lameness. It is something that has stuck with us."

After a year of completing the programme with the assistance of their vet and Charlotte, Caralyn says their team use the principles from the Healthy Hoof programme on a daily basis. "We are all more aware of the basic causes of lameness."

Caralyn thinks the partnership between vets around the country and DairyNZ to provide the Healthy Hoof programme is great. It is great to see vets taking up the challenge.

Her advice to any farmers who has a lameness issues but has not done anything about it, is "to just join Healthy Hoof! Our team really got into the programme and the programme supplies you with all the resources to help reduce lameness on your farm and educate new staff members".

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