A footbath is an important tool in the prevention of lameness in dairy herds.
Issues with some form of lameness can be seen on many dairy farms, no matter how good roadways or control measures are.
On farms where investment has been made into handling facilities, a built-in footbath can usually be found.
They can often be seen at the end of an exit race, so they become familiar to cows.
Footbath
When selecting a footbath, some design features are important to consider, the most important being whether to go for a narrow or wide footbath.
A narrow footbath has several advantages, the main one being it requires less solution. This is probably more suitable for smaller herds.
With that said, ideally a footbath should be 3m long and 12cm deep to maximise contact time with the product.
An Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) calculation shows that a narrow footbath that is 50cm wide, 3m long and 12cm deep has a volume of 180L. This makes the bath suitable for 180 cows before the solution needs to be changed.
A wider footbath is more suitable for larger herd or ones where a large number of cows exit the parlour at one time.
With a width of 200cm or 2m, the volume of the footbath increases to 720L which would be suitable for 720 cows.
While it allows more cows to walk through it without needing the solution to be changed, it also requires more water and solution. It is also important to note that some products have a limit on the number of cows that it can treat.
So for a herd with 350 cows it would probably make more sense to use the narrow footbath and just replace the solution at the halfway point.
This increases the chances of the product being effective on all the animals that walked through the solution.
If the footbath is located at the end of the exit race it would also make more sense for cow flow to have it be narrower.
A wider bath might allow cows to stop, whereas a narrow footbath means cows from behind will force cows to continue moving.