There’s nothing worse than having a sore foot. If you’ve ever had plantar fasciitis or some sort of foot injury, you know the pain can be truly debilitating. It can hamper mobility so much that everyday tasks seem daunting.
Lameness in bulls can be just as debilitating. It is obvious that a lame bull will be less likely to walk around a pasture and find cows that are in heat and perhaps even less likely to mount cows and breed them.
However, the impact of lameness on the bull is far more than physical limitations. The pain associated with lameness causes the stress hormone cortisol to be released. Cortisol can have a negative impact on the production of sperm and can therefore have an impact on semen quality.
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If the bull is lame for four days or more, the impact on semen quality will last for at least several weeks. In a recent interview with Dr. Colin Palmer, he suggests that any bull treated for any type of significant lameness should be replaced for that breeding season because the bull is unlikely to have good semen quality for a significant time after the lameness episode.
A study by Dr. Albert Barth and Dr. Cheryl Waldner demonstrated the major impacts of lameness on semen quality. Their paper, published in the Canadian Veterinary Journal in 2002, summarized the findings of breeding soundness exams on 2,110 bulls over a 14-year period.
In that study, many factors affected semen quality, including age of the bull, body condition and scrotal circumference. However, this study also showed lameness had a major impact on semen quality.
Lame bulls were 4.5 times more likely to have unsatisfactory semen quality compared to bulls that were not lame. In that study, less than a quarter of lame bulls were able to pass the breeding soundness exam with acceptable semen quality.
In many cases, when we see a lame bull, we tend to assume it has footrot, but that is not always the case. Try to get a good look at the lame bull before you decide to use antibiotics.
The clinical signs of footrot are fairly distinctive and if you carefully observe the animal, you can usually distinguish foot rot from other causes of lameness. Footrot usually causes a rapid onset of lameness, usually localized to one limb. There is uniform swelling of the coronary band, which is the area where the skin meets the top of the hoof.
It is especially important to note whether this swelling is uniform and is on both sides of the foot. Arthritis or traumatic lesions often have swellings that concentrate on one side of the foot and are not uniform.
With footrot, there is swelling in the interdigital space and the claws should be slightly separated. If you are able to examine the foot, there will be splitting of the interdigital skin and foul smelling debris between the claws. In many cases, these animals will also have an elevated temperature as a result of infection.
Bulls with footrot will usually respond to antibiotic therapy and will markedly improve the degree of lameness within a few days. Lack of response to antibiotic therapy is usually a sign that the lameness is due to some other condition. The bull may have a leg injury, a sole abscess, septic arthritis of the coffin joint, laminitis or some other condition.
If you have treated a bull for footrot and it does not improve, don’t continue treating with antibiotics or try a different antibiotic. There is usually some other reason causing this animal’s lameness, and antibiotics are not usually beneficial. Consult your veterinarian for a diagnosis.
Regardless of the cause, or the bull’s response to treatment, you probably need to consider replacing that bull for the breeding season. The stress and pain associated with this condition can cause longer term effects on the bull’s semen quality.
John Campbell is a professor in the department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at the University of Saskatchewan’s Western College of Veterinary Medicine.
