Ankara Universitesi Veteriner Fakultesi Dergisi, cilt.57, sa.2, ss.99-104, 2010 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus, TRDizin)
The objective of the study was to estimate the lameness induced total and avoidable financial losses in modern dairy herds. For this purpose, a prospective longitudinal observation study was carried out in 87 randomly selected dairy herds from 1684 Turkish Dairy Breeding Association (TDBA) herds in Burdur, Konya and Ki{dotless}rklareli provinces between October 2003 and September 2004. The incidence rate of lameness in Burdur, Ki{dotless}rklareli and Konya provinces and weighted average of all were 13.7%; 13.4%, 5.6% and 10.2% respectively. The target incidence rate was calculated to be 6.6%. Financial losses from each cases of lameness were estimated as 271TL/case for mild cases (interdigital dermatitis), 343TL/case for intermediate cases (digital diseases), 509TL/case for the severe cases (sole ulcer) and 382TL/case for the weighted mean of all the disease forms. The mean financial loss for the average dairy enterprise was estimated to be 865TL of which 589TL (68%) was the avoidable losses. The study concluded that lameness causes severe financial losses in dairy herds. However, majority of these losses can be avoided by the dairy farmers.