Two experiments were run in a commercial dairy herd to test the efficacy of topical treatments of
digital dermatitis associated with severe heel-horn erosion. In Experiment I, topical treatments with solutions of either
glutaraldehyde or
oxytetracycline were compared with foot trimming and cleansing alone. After trimming of all feet, one front and one rear foot in each cow were treated with either
glutaraldehyde or
oxytetracycline (regardless of
dermatitis status), while the other feet were used as controls and only trimmed. Two hundred foot records were obtained from 34 Swedish Red and White and 16 Swedish Holstein cows. The proportions (p) of feet cured from
digital dermatitis were compared between each group of medically treated feet and the control feet, assuming the feet to be independent observations with respect to curing.
Oxytetracycline was significantly more effective than hoof trimming alone (p=0.87 and 0.34, respectively; P<0.001) and than
glutaraldehyde (p=0.41; P=0.004). Treatment with
glutaraldehyde was no more effective than hoof trimming alone. In Experiment II, a specially designed footbath with two longitudinal compartments was used to study the effectiveness of a
solution of acidic ionised
copper in preventing or curing
digital dermatitis. The footbath--using water in one compartment--was constructed to make within-cow comparisons of treatment efficacy possible. The hoof health of 44 dairy cows (also included in Experiment I) were studied when the animals first were turned out to pasture and at the end of the grazing season (approximately 6 months later). During the grazing season, the cows were walked through the footbath twice daily after milking for a total of 47 days, divided into five separate periods ranging in length from 3 to 16 days. As judged by a two-sample comparison of proportions, a higher proportion of the cows' hind feet that were affected by
dermatitis were cured by the
copper solution (20/24) than by water alone (12/23). The
copper solution had no significant preventive effect on healthy feet.