Good evening everyone, and thank you for joining us for tonight's BCVA webinar. My name is Sara Peterson, and I'll be chairing the webinar tonight, as well as introducing the topic and asking you some questions about your approach to trimming before we start. I'll then be handing over to our two main speakers, Doctor Nick Bell and Dr.

Gerard Kramer. Both are happy to remain online for questions, so please type any that you may have in the Q&A box during the webinar, and I'll save your questions for the end of the presentation. If you have any technical difficulties, please let us know by using the Q&A box, and we will do our best to assist you.

If you can't see the Q&A box, if you move your mouse, the taskbar should become visible at the bottom of the screen. So it's my pleasure to introduce both Doctor Nick Bell and Doctor Gerald Kramer as our main speakers this evening. Nick graduated from Cambridge in 1999 and in 2002 embarked on a PhD on lameness and dairy cattle at Bristol, which led led on to the Healthy Feet Project, which was instrumental in the setting up of the ADHDB Healthy Feet programme.

Following several years at the Royal Bet College, Nick left in 2016 to set up an independent consultancy business, as well as joining the Herd Health Group at University of Nottingham as an honorary associate professor. He continues to lead layer's research in many areas including foot trimming. Our second speaker, Gerrard, graduated from the University of Guelph in 2002, completing his Doctor of Veterinary Science thesis in 2007.

He's an associate professor at the University of Minnesota in the Population Medicine department, and alongside his teaching duties, conducts research and provides training to the dairy industry. The goals of Gerrard's research programme are to lead evidence-based treatment and prevention strategies for dairy cow lameness. Prior to joining the University of Minnesota, Gerrard operated a veterinary practise focused on providing hoof trimming services and including training and lameness consultancy to the dairy industry.

Together, Nick and Gerard are perfectly placed to talk on tonight's topic, cattle foot trimming, research and regulation. Before I hand over to Nick, I've been asked to ask you as the audience, your approach to measuring toe length in cattle when undertaking routine foot trimming. As we will hear later on tonight, toe length has been the focus of recent UK based research, and so we would like to hear what your approach is before sharing the results of an international expert consultation conducted as part of my PhD studies on cattle foot trimming at the University of Nottingham in partnership with AHDB.

So moving on to your first, your first question for this evening. Nick, if you could just forward on the slide for me, please. OK.

So our first question for you tonight is, when measuring toe or dorsal wall length, do you measure with a view to trimming to a point or to a step at the toe? So there's two diagrams below just to help you determine whether you measure to a point or to a step, and the horn that would be removed for each. So I'll launch the polling now.

So if you could just indicate whether you trim whether a view to trimming to a point or to a step, or whether it's something else. OK, so we'll stop it there, and it's an exact 50/50 split. So we've got 24 measuring at the step, 24 at the point, and one other, and a quarter of you abstaining from voting.

OK. So that's interesting there. What about The next question, and your next question is.

When When measuring to toe and dorsal wall length, do you measure? From the coronary band. Or from the point at which the horn goes hard.

So again, 22 options there, you're measuring from the coronary band or from where the point at which the horn is palpably hard. So here we've got 59% measuring from the coronary band, and we've got 21 or 41% of you measuring from where the horn goes hard. OK.

So, if we move on to our next question, which is our third and final question. It's taking into account your answers to question one and question two. What toe length or dorsal wall length would you recommend for a 650 kilogramme Holstein cow when trimming her routinely at dry off?

And we've got a few options here, we've got 75 mL, 80 mL, 85 mil, 90 mil or something else. OK, a bit of a clear, a clear winner here. Coming in.

So, 80 mil has come out at top with 45%. 85 mL at 36%. And then you can see they're 90 mil getting 13% and 4% of you saying something else.

OK. So, I've had quite a few of you voting there, but there's obviously quite a big split in terms of how you're measuring toe length and what toe length you're, you're, also using. So, what is the correct way, according to an expert group?

And this is where we asked 11 experts who are all involved in cattle foot trimming research, basic exactly the same questions as we've just asked you, now. So moving on to the first question, what did they think? So, when they were measuring toe toe and dorsal wall length, were they measuring with a view to trimming at a point or to a step?

Now, we were almost 50/50 split. When it came to the experts, just real the results in it. We found actually more of them, so 7 were trimming to a step, 4 to a point, and one said it depended on the type of claw that they were, they were approaching.

So we were trying to get a gold standard approach here just for one very small step of the five-step method. When it came to question two, were they measuring from the coronary band to where the horn went hard, we had a slight preference here to where the horn went hard. Whereas, interestingly, when tonight's audience answered that same question, we had more, more measuring from the coronary band.

So we had 30 measuring from coronary band versus 21 from the horn went hard. Now, coming on to the final question, which is what toe length were they using for a 650 kilogramme cow trimmed at dry off. We had quite a big split, just like we had tonight as well.

But again, more focused towards 80 and 85 mil, which is what the audience tonight was saying as well. So you can see, despite all the our expert group being involved in foot trimming research, there was quite a lot of variation when it came to how they were approaching toe length. And if we actually put all of this together in one graph, And we can see just how, how different their approaches are.

So this graph here combines question one and question two. So the bar graph that each bar shows where they were measuring from, was it from the Cori band or from when the hall went hard? And the colour coding shows whether they would trim to a point or to a step.

So you can see just from 11 measurement, which is our toe length measurement, you can see that we've got 5 different approaches to it there. When we then add on how long they're leaving the toe. You can see here overlying the graph is the measurements that they would use.

And you can see that out of 11 of our expert panel, only 2 approach toe length and use the same toe length. As each other, whereas everybody else was using a different approach. So from one small group of researchers, there is a huge variation in the in the approach to, to just one small step when it comes to trimming cows' feet.

And that's something that research that has been conducted in the UK recently has shown, and this is something that Nick is going to, lead on and talk about next, because we can't even get consensus from our expert group. So, that was just a little bit of an introduction into our expert panel consultation, and really that, we, we don't have a consensus when it comes to to length. So, I'm now going to pass over to Nick, who's going to talk about some of the research that he's been involved in conducting, before he passes on to Gerard.

Thank you very much for taking part in the polling questions. OK. Thank you, Sara.

Can I just check, there's a squiggle on the, the slide here. Can you see that on your slide, Sara? No.

Yes. OK, that that was me, that was me playing with, I think I'm, it's really annoying me, so I'm, ah, there we go, there we go, it's done. Good.

So, but now I can't, move the slide on, let me just. To, there we go, right. So, good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

It's a great pleasure to be here and sat next to me is Gerrard, and we, we've had a, a fun day out, and, thank you to Sara and BCVA for inviting me to do this webinar with you tonight. So I'm just going to run through a little bit of the research that I've been involved with, . And it goes back over a couple of years, it's work done by various colleagues and, and students that I've worked with, so I'll give them credit as we go along.

But, I want to start just by, sort of, saying that if you get the foot trimming right, then there's plenty, that there is some evidence to show that trimming can prevent lesions and helps detect the early stages of, of lameness and . The evidence for this is, is growing, but it's surprisingly weak at this stage. If we get it wrong, then it's really down to experience that tells us that we can increase the risk of lameness.

There is some work done on thin soles. But I, I'm going to start this talk by saying there is actually a huge gap in the evidence base. And this was something that we highlighted in a review that AHDB funded, a few years ago, where we really did comment on how, much more work there is to do on areas such as this, particularly when you consider how much trimming is done, worldwide, for dairy cows.

And most of the research that we looked at within our review was focused on the five step method. I think most of you will be familiar with the Dutch 5 step method, which is the the traditional form of foot trimming, and more recently, there's been some modifications suggested by Carl Bergian team in Wisconsin. And that's, Gerald's going to talk a little bit more about some of these modifications, but it's essentially focused on a deeper, wider model as being one of the main differences.

There are a few other small differences as well, but it's essentially a very similar set of steps, and just some slight modifications of some of them. So I would call it a variation on the technique. Of course, there are, there are other foot trimming methods, and here I've got an illustration of the Kansans method.

This is not an approach that I've got any expertise or familiarity with. There's also an Atlas method, which again, I'm, I'm not gonna comment on these. I'm gonna focus on, some of the, the work that we've done based on five step method.

So I'm gonna initially start by talking a bit about where we are with the trimming profession in the UK at the moment, and then move on to some of the work that we've done on what might be the optimal toe length and what might be the best time to trim heifers. So, currently in the UK, we've, we've, we've got a number of qualifications. We're probably pretty well off.

Many people will be running 1 to 5 day foot trimming courses which, through vet practises or through colleges, and there'll be a certificate of attendance awarded at the end of it, and that's got to be one of the, the mainstays for most. People trimming cow's feet on a day to day basis on most dairy farms. But for those people that wanted to go a step further, there, there used to be an MPTC Level 2 herdsman's certificate.

And that was available until a couple of years ago and then was dropped through a lack of interest. And I was going to say actually that there was a level 3 MPTC certificate in professional foot trimming, which I think we're now in the final 6 months of this MPTC are planning to remove this at the end of the year, again through lack of interest. So I'm We're really left with the Dutch diploma as being the main qualification going forward, and the Royal Agricultural University have just put together in collaboration with a few foot trimmers, a new level 4 professional course and qualification, which looks set to be run at the start of September, and then at regular intervals from then on.

There are a few other . Assessments that are carried out, so a lot of professional foot trimmers would attend a check day every 2 years, to maintain their licence status within the NACFT, the National Association of Cattle Foot Trimmers. And some people go through the mantra, train the trainer type approach, which will, allow, the, the, the necessary skills to to be developed for better delivery of, of training courses, but that's not specific to foot trimming, so it's more to enhance instructor ability.

And then there are some people that go on and do, an advanced instructors, qualification, in the Netherlands. And I'm sure if you go around other places around the world, there are other courses and qualifications being delivered. I mentioned this one, although again, it's going to be redundant once, we get to the end of this year.

The MPTC assessor's qualification, which, I know a few people in the UK have been through. So really, we're probably going to be left with the Dutch diploma and the, the new Royal Agricultural University qualifications, the, the main two routes of qualification for professional trimmers, and then certificates of attendance for people attending the 1 to 5 day courses that are delivered around the country by, many of you listening today, I'm sure. It's worth mentioning that there are, there have been two hoof trimming bodies formed in Great Britain.

There's the National Association of Cattle Foot Trimmers, which was formed in the 90s, well established, very strong membership, at the last conference. I think there were several 100 people there and, it's going strong and really has served the profession, the, the trimming profession very well over the last few years. They have this annual conference or CPD meeting, which they attend international speakers.

So this year the Do spoke, and, they, they have formed an independent body, the register of Cattle Frictions. To oversee any disciplinary issues. And so all the members of the NACFT will be expected to be member registered with the, the register of capital which is ROCFT.

At the moment, I think it's just, some, a concept that's been set up and, I think the current chairman of the NECFT is, quite keen to develop this register. And they have a licence system, so trimmers, are either licenced or not or provisional, and the basis of the licence is on holding a qualification, whether that's the Dutch diploma or the Level 3 MPTC qualification, and that they have a a check day every 2 years. The Call Hoof Care Standards Board was developed in 2016, following a concept that came out of a discussion within NACFT about how the quality assurance of foot trimming could be raised, and there wasn't an appetite at that time within NACFT to develop.

Any further quality assurance. And so, a, a group broke away to establish, an auditing, a set of standards and an auditing process. So they have a written set of standards, which covers a whole range of professional activities.

All trimmers that are signed up to this, undergo a spot check every 18 months on one of their client's farms while they're there trimming, and some of the cows that they trimmed during that day are brought back through the crash and, and checked, to make sure that the very best standards of foot trimming are being adhered to, and there's a confidential interview with a client, to get some feedback. . On the trimmer's professional conduct.

Trimmers can join, and they undergo a period while they're being assessed and, and developing, and so they have a provisional status until they complete their first audit. And there's also an annual meeting in which the standards are discussed and, some CPD is developed and issues relating to the trimming profession are discussed and a measures put in place to hopefully address any concerns. So last year there was a concern that NPTC were withdrawing their level 3 qualifications, so, and the new qualification at the Royal Agricultural University was, was set up in response to that.

So, two very different purposes, two very different, set of values. One is much more about serving the members and providing members with a a supporting body and the other one more, much more focused on, auditing to a set of standards. And I think some of that distinctions got missed, certainly within the the veterinary profession, so I thought it was important that we covered that.

So moving on to some of the research that I've been involved with to do with foot trimming, I, I think it's important at this stage just to recap on the objectives of the five-step method. We, we usually talk about the five step method in terms of the actions, the, the various, methods that we're, we're applying to each stage, so the the various. Actions that we're doing at each step, so.

Step one, we would normally talk about shortening the toe length, but actually this, the objective of step one is to, to create a a foot angle as close to the ideal, which we feel is probably around about 50 or 52 degrees. Step 2, we, we'll normally talk about matching the other claw, in terms of length and level. And this is really about trying to recreate balance between the two claws and ensure that the weight distribution is, is correct.

Step 3 is about. Again, about weight distribution, but in this step, it's about taking the weight away from the critical point, which is the sole ulcer point, which is very prone to bruising and ulceration, and aiming to transfer that weight onto the walls as best as possible and onto the heels. So we talk about the toe triangle.

I'm not sure if you can see the, the, the, the pointer here, but the toe triangle runs along the axial wall to the tip of the toe and then along the abaxial wall, towards the heel. And that's a really important structure, weight bearing structure, and the more we can do to improve foot angle, tip the cow onto that, that toe triangle, the better, and the more we can do to model out. The the centre of the soul, where we get soul ulcers, the better.

Step 4 is then about alleviating weight from a painful claw, and that might be through the use of blocks and trimming down some of the heel in the back 2/3 of the affected claw if it's a lateral hind claw or a medial front claw. And then step 5 is about removing loose horn and and sharp ridges. And the loose horn might be around lesion, so it might be the loose horn around a sole ulcer or around a white line lesion.

So that's the, the 5 step method. And I've just popped into the, the picture on step 3, a, an image that I took while I was working with Christophe Mulling at Total Dairy last year. This was a force plate picture and I attempted to trim the foot as best as I could, and, and I got a bit of a shock because I put in a deep model and there's still a little bit of weight bearing there in the centre of the soul.

So. This was a very useful learning experience for me, and I think going forward, I'd love to do a bit more work with Christoph and the force plates. So, I said I would talk a little bit about toe length and where we are with recommendations for toe length.

This was first brought into discussion by Roger Bloy and er an RVC student Becky Inman, . Back in 2012 when they looked at a a load of cadaver feet. And they compared, first of all, they looked at pedal bone length and found a large variation in pedal bone length and concluded perhaps the recommendation of a single toe length measure is a bit simplistic.

And in some instances, the pedal bone lengths, the dorsal wall pedal bone lengths were. Were alarmingly large and, and at that stage, I think all they could report was that that there was significant variation and actually we ought to reconsider. The recommendation that Tucson Marvin came up with in his foot trimming guide, and that was a good 7.5 centimetres for Frisians.

In fact, that was, that was revised the original recommendation was 7, a good 7 centimetres for, for Frisians, and that had got revised up to 7.5. But I think it was Roger who really first got the discussion going about what is.

What should we be recommending? So, the, the Nottingham Group picked up on this, . And they had an opportunity of looking at some 219 claws from 78 coal cows from the Royal Creighton at SIUC.

They put them through a high grade X-ray CT scanner and used the the various dimensions to work out what might be the optimal toe length if you were, either, . Trimming to a point or trimming to a 5 millimetre step at the toe as Sara just mentioned. And if you were, and one of their outcomes was looking at the, the sole thickness, so the.

The assumption was made that a 5 millimetre sole thickness, would be ideal, and that was taken from a number of, views that have been expressed in the published literature. So, The recommendations coming out of this analysis that was published in the vet record was that if you trimmed toe length from measured from the coronary band, from the top of the very top of the perioli horn, some people refer to this as the hairline. There's slightly different anatomical landmarks, but roughly the same.

If you were trimming to say, 75 millimetres. As could be reasonably interpreted from the literature from the to Marvin's guide. Then the percentage of soles that were thicker than 5 millimetres were only 5%.

Which caused a great deal of alarm and, and concern. And it really wasn't until you were trimming to 90 millimetres from the coronary band to a point at the toe that you were achieving a reasonable sole thickness in the majority of cows. So in this instance, 96% of cows, and you had to trim to 95 millimetres to ensure that there were no cows with less than 5 millimetre thickness at the sole.

Many of us who were looking at this work at the time said, well, actually, not many people would measure from the top of the coronary band, and not many people would trim to a sharp point at the toe. And actually, in the process of following five step method, you leave a small step at the toe, and you wouldn't measure from where the where the claw horn goes hard, just below the coronary band. And Most of us sort of guessed that the, the difference in overall dorsal length if you measured in this way, would probably be about 5 millimetres at the, the top, at the at the coronary band and 5 millimetres at the toe.

So actually, the recommendations aren't a long way off what many of us were saying at the time, which was 75 to 80 millimetres might be about right for big Holstein cows. 75 millimetres is perhaps sufficient for for your smaller Holsteins or or younger animals. And so here we've got so I.

Many of us said, but actually this should really be a debate about not what is ideal toe length, but what is our anatomical landmarks that we need to refer to. So now, I think there's much more clarity when it comes to training and it comes to producing training materials that we should be making it very clear if we're talking about toe length, just where are we measuring from and where are we measuring to. And many of us will talk about, trimming the excess sole at the toe, as we've gotten the, the right hand picture until the white line is reappearing.

And actually, this, this actually corresponds to leaving a small 5 millimetre step at the toe. So it's, it's all fairly, they're fairly consistent messages, but I think we have to be very careful how we convey these messages and be very clear about what our guidance would be. And for novices, then it's probably wise to err on the side of caution, so.

80, 85 millimetres may be more suitable. And the, I think the recommendations from this work was actually as you gain more in experience than actually the 75 millimetres might be appropriate for, for many cows. But the other question that I think this work prompted, was this, this question of what, what are we seeing thin soles in the field when we are trimming to the standard Dutch 5 step method if we are applying the 75 or 80 millimetre toe length guidance.

So, I had the pleasure of working with Beth Riley here, who's she's. Been an intern at RVC working with Synergy and she I met Beth during her final year at RVC and she did her undergraduate project with me, which involved going out and scanning some feet using this Honda scanner. What we wanted to look at originally was the two toe lengths, because we thought actually we, we ought to make a comparison between the two toe lengths measuring from the coronary band.

In this instance, the trimmers were all using 5 step methods, and they would all be trimming pretty much to a step at the toe. But we thought, let's look at this toe length, but quite quickly, Beth concluded she was struggling to measure, identify the top of the coronary coronary band, the top of the periotic horn. And so she abandoned that and just stuck with measuring from where the .

Claw horn meant palpably hard. That was easier to assess by in field conditions where you, you, you've got a foot raised in a crash and you couldn't always see the coronary band terribly well that was covered in slurry. And maybe in in darker conditions.

So she measured the medial claw as we would medial hind claw as we would in cows if we're following the standard five-step method, but then scanned the sole in the lateral claw, because we consider that one to be the one more prone to going thin, although clearly both claws can go thin, and in some herds we do see more problems with thin soles. In, in the medial claw sometimes. So, and she worked with a number of trimmers.

4 trimmers across 11 farms and recruited 174 black and white Holstein cows and looked at both feet, and they were a range of parities, and it was what what was presented for routine trimming on the day she was with the trimmer. She also looked at some crossbreds and she published Beth presented this data at the International ruminant Lass conference earlier this year. But if we just cover the work she did on black and white, so she, she scanned at the, the tip of the toe and generated scans like this, which showed soul depth and aquarium thickness, and then the highly ecogenic line there, the biggest, thickest line is the, the pedal bone.

And, she, she arrived at this, technique, having practised with a number of different ultrasound scanners at the RVC and, and she did some cadaver. Validation work with a CT scanner. So there was a lot of preparation that went into this and I, I think it paid off because actually she got some really interesting scans and some, some really interesting results.

As I said, she excluded the crossbred cows and any cows with significant clinically relevant lesions, as we've got here. So, I've got here a graph plot of 173 of the cows. One of them was excluded for a reason which I can't recall right now.

And, you can see there is quite a range of toe lengths. And soul thicknesses. And it's important to say at this stage that actually the majority of these cows.

I think it was 7 of these cars. And not a majority. 67 underwent trimming.

The rest did not require trimming, so the majority did not require trimming of the toe and the sole of the toe. So for a lot of these cows, it was just a modelling out. So.

I haven't separated out the data, but that might be an interesting thing for us to look at. But I just wanted to show you that the overall variation that actually there were some cows at 9 centimetre toe length, but, but even at that toe length, there was still a range of sole thicknesses at the at the toe in that lateral claw from 3 millimetres right the way up to over 12 millimetres. So quite considerable variation.

The overall average was just over 7.5, and the, the, the mean sole thickness was just under 6 millimetres. So, and 35% of cows appear to have a thin sole.

So Beth asked the question, what if all feet had been trimmed to 7.5 centimetres? Well, clearly, we would have generated some thin soles, particularly in those cows with apparently 9 centimetre toe length.

So she worked out that actually 18.4% of cows would have had a thin sole if 5 millimetres is our definition of thin soles had we trimmed. To to 7.5 centimetres.

She also, reckoned that actually, Soul Flex is not a good predictor of soul thickness, and that was her impression, having pressed a lot of souls, having scanned them. And, and that's probably a really important word of caution. And the conclusion from this is that actually, perhaps the more appropriate safe toe length from this data set looks to be more like 8 centimetres or, or even more.

And actually for novices, it might be better if we're up at 8.5 centimetres. And this is some work that she's prepared for a manuscript that she's going to submit to Journal of Dairy Science soon.

So, so that's the, the little bit of work that we've done on, on toe length and soul thickness, and Sara's going to be picking up on some of these points within her PhD and she's already, examined some of these points in more detail. And that's for another, another web webinar another day. I just want to finish up by talking about, one of the trials that we did, looking at the benefit of pre-carving and 100 day foot trims in, parity one dairy heifers.

And this was some work done by Sophie Mahendron, who was with me at the RVC. So, we were keen to explore the idea of routine foot trimming. It seemed to be a very common practise in the US speaking to, to trimmers there.

So, the, the pre-carving foot trim was one of the interventions that we looked at, but we were quite interested to see actually, did the pre-carving foot trim reduce the need for the 100 day, post-calving foot check that many of us felt was potentially very beneficial. And so we, we looked at the combination of the two, we looked at the two in isolation, and we compared it with a group of heifers that we just, conducted mobility score every 2 weeks. Over the course of the lactation, of course, I say we, this was so that did all the hard work on this.

So heifers were recruited. From, from one rearing operation, and they were sent to two different dairies. One, a new dairy, and the other one, an older, well established dairy, and all the heifers were mobility scored every two weeks.

And we had the, the help of a very good trimmer. So we recruited 419 dairy heifers. And the heifers were randomly allocated to 4 treatment groups.

So one was trim 3 weeks before calving, one was trim 100 days post calving. The second group, . Involved just the trim at 100 days.

3rd group involved the trim at pre-carving, only in the last group was just mobility scored every 2 weeks. We had a Dutch diploma of qualified trimmer, and I've already mentioned the mobility score, and then they all checked at dry off and we looked at various outcomes. So.

Here's an untrimmed foot on the right and a trimmed foot on the left, and there's a small digital dermatitis lesion there as well. And we were using the deeper, wider model approach, but pretty much following five-step method as as we felt was typified best practise as much as possible, sparing the heel of the medial claw, and not over balancing the claws whenever possible. And we were trimming at that point to a 7.5 centimetre toe length for these these heifers.

So, on the, on the left, there's a graph of the fortnightly prevalence of all 419 of the heifers recruited from 0 being the day they carved through to when they were being dried off, the right hand side of the graph. And, on the left, you'll see the axis, which is the percentage of heifers that were lame. So at the highest point, which was about 29 to 42 days carved, there were 12% of that heifer cohort lane, dropping down to 1% at around drying off.

So actually, overall, this is a low prevalence, cohort of heifers, but actually when we looked at what percentage of heifers had at least one mobility score that was lame, I. Mobility score 2 or 3, then actually the, it was almost 50% for the group that had the pre-carving trim alone. Which was a bit of a shock because we were expecting this to be the best group in relation to the group that were just being mobility scored fortnightly.

In fact, it was the the group that were just mobility scored that appeared to have the lowest period prevalence of lameness within this study, and that was highly significant within our modelling that we, we did for this study. So, the conclusions from this, we obviously had to be careful because it was two dairies, one have rearing unit. One of the dairies had a lot of new concrete and a lot of walking, and they were sand units.

So this study may have been confounded by the fact they were both high wear units, particularly what the the newer dairy. But it did highlight actually the importance of being very careful with blanket recommendations, particularly in these high wear units where actually maybe trimming is not, always going to be beneficial, certainly not trimming of the soles. And actually, Well, we've got a picture here on the left of very well trimmed, thank you, a trimmer called Ben who allow me to share this picture actually for a lot of the units we work with, maybe modelling out is going to be the most beneficial thing that we could be doing.

So, With that, I'd like to hand over the presentation to Gerard, who's sat to my left and he can talk to you a little bit about some of the trimming work that he's been doing at the University of Minnesota. Thank you. Thank you, Nick.

Just to continue on the train and just figure out if how and when we trim, does it actually matter. I think as an industry, we spend a lot of time, discussing and a lot of beer discussing and a lot of bandwidth talking about trimming methods, and as Nick suggested, there's very little data to support most of what we do. I'm gonna try to show you some data today that suggests that if you use a big model and first lactation in animals, it actually helps them in their second lactation.

But if we use, if we do a mid lactation trim in those same animals, it doesn't seem to make a difference with respect to lesions when we get to it. So that's kind of the data I'm gonna talk about. I'm gonna show you some of the data, how we got to that conclusion, some of the background, discuss a little bit about techniques, and if we have time, we'll go into some other trimming related research, but it looks like we've used up a lot of time already.

So the study we did, was basically comparing the big versus a little model, and when people talk about big versus little model, we had to quantify that. So we use, we gave the tremors that we use, we gave them gauges. So the gauges that are on the screen, there's a big gauge which we quantify as a big model or the little model, so that would be this one over here.

This was about 42 millimetres of thickness, and then we had an 18 millimetres of width measured from the abaxial side. That's how we quantified the big versus little model, because of time thought this would be the traditional functional trimming method and this would be the big model adaptation. Although when we were in Nick and I were in Munich for the Lameness conference, we actually saw Tucson Raven, a video of Tussaint Raven trimming, and he was actually trimming more with the big model as we were so a lot of us are surprised by.

So what we think of the Dutch trimming method might be interpreted in different ways, but that's the study we did. We did this in just under 1600 cows and 3 herds. These herds were all in recycled sand bedding, and we can argue if that was the right approach.

When we had the study, we got funding for the study, the reasoning was that probably somebody's gonna fund this study once. And so we wanted to try and prove that this works because our hypothesis was that the big model would be beneficial, and we want to prove that it works and if we're gonna prove it in the system that we think is the best and most common for the cows because if we can prove it works in embedded freestyles, then it's likely gonna work in mattress herbs and other systems. You can see that might have been a bad assumption, but that's what we put our eggs in that basket.

Hoof trimmers, we use two professional hoof trimmers. They enrolled cows weekly, so I didn't think it was fair to ask the trimmer to flip between cows when they trim, so we asked them to flip every week. So we gave them basically a box and saying today is a big model week, next week would be a little model week.

We flipped a coin again to get them started and then cows were recruited, . Basically every week as they came for the dry off trim. These cows were using mobility score, we call it visual locomotion scoring, but your mobility scores every other week by my graduate student, Doctor Grant Stoddard.

So that happened every other week before trimming and then after trimming too. And then we looked for lesions at 100 to 150 days in milk at roof trimming. So the farms we recruited were doing a dry off and a mid lactation trim already and that's the farms we were looking at.

To get at the results, we had, just under 1200 cows available for 10, 150 days trimming. Of course, there's some loss due to cows being moved, cows not being trimmed during this time period, and we wanted to restrict it kind of during this time period. Because if the cows got too far out, then it's hard to say, well, the intervention we did a dry off is still effective at 100 days of milk.

So that's kind of why we restricted to the 10 150 days milk window. We also excluded cows that were trimmed prior to 100 days in milk. The reason being is that if we kept those cows in, that's a different population of cows because those are the lucky cows at the farms diagnosed as lame and got seen by the trimmer.

Then we had just under 1100 cows available for mobility scoring. So let's look at the data. Let's look what we found.

So overall, we had a 3, the lesions of interest, we looked for were thin soles, soul ulcers, white line disease. I show a picture of the abscess, but actually we're also recording just separation and then digital dermatitis. So we had 13% of lesions overall in these four main categories, and then we had 11% for the big.

So a little bit of difference between the two, not as much as we're hoping. Then the breakdown between the two lesions, so this is, I would call this an incidence or occurrence of new cases of about 3.5% for thinoles, just under 2 for soul ulcers, 4 for white line, and 3.2 for digital dermatitis.

For digital dermatitis, we, the cows that we enrolled had to be free of lesions except they could have digital dermatitis cause we didn't think that would affect our trimming technique. So these are really new cases of lameness that are happening in these cows. If we look at the big model, the results, just fewer numbers, for most lesions they get maybe 1 or 2 more cows for stool ulcers.

So those are the results. So then we applied some modelling and basically our conclusion was that overall, if we look at all the cows, we found no evidence for a difference. That's a little bit different than saying they're the same, cause that's hard to do statistically, but basically we said there's no evidence for a difference between the two.

However, if we just look at first lactation animals, so cows that have less of a history on the farm, also less of a history of lamus, if we look at those cows specifically, we actually saw using the big model resulted in 5 less cows with horn lesions per 100. So we call that a risk difference, but basically we're saying if you trim 100 cows with both methods, you're gonna have 55 less cows with lesions if you use the big model. We think that's a difference, that's an important difference, not as big as we'd hoped, of course, but it does show that there's a difference when we do it for these cows.

Because, because we also had the mobility data, what you're looking at here is basically a survival curve, so some of you might be familiar looking this with respect to reproductive type programmes, but this is a similar graph trying to say, hey, what's the time of lameness. So on the y axis, whoops. Using a different computer.

On the Y axis you have, you should start at the top and the goal would be to go down as slow as possible. So if we look at the little model versus the big model, the little model cows are becoming lame faster, which would obviously be not a good thing, and the big model cows are taking a longer time before they show lameness based on mobility scores and the criteria we use, we use the 4 point system, so very similar to the UK system that's used, and we actually use the same criteria that some of the UK studies have shown saying that we need two consecutive scores of lameness because mobility scoring isn't perfect and we wanted to take out some of the variation. So the coal lamb, she had to have 2 consecutive scores of being a 2 or 3 in your system.

So that's is a little bit confusion, but why would be a difference between first lactation cows and all the cows? And I think some of the work that's recently been done in the UK might be an explanation. So if we look at cows with a lameness history versus cows that had a lameness history, my hypothesis is that our older cows, because they're walking around, likely have thin soles at some point during their life.

There might be more bone spurs in it, and for those cows, it probably doesn't matter how we trim them because we've done some damage to them already. Just in the environment, whereas the younger cows without a lameness history, probably we can affect their outcomes a little bit. That's just the hypothesis at this point, but I'm becoming of the opinion that if we're gonna do hoof trimming studies, we need to start with young animals and any study that doesn't start with heifers, I have serious questions about and probably won't believe the results or won't think they're very applicable.

So that answers one maybe question about method. What about timing? Right, so in the same study, because we had the opportunity to look at all these cows at 150 days in milk, we convince one farm.

To let us split those cows at mid lactation up into three different categories. So we looked at these cows and so there's 100 or 77, just under 800 cows in one herd that we're able to look at and say, OK, can we split these cows into either no trim, either a big trim again, so the same group they were in before, and then the little trim, the same group they were in before. These were randomly allocated and we all actually allocated those cows to their treatment groups of mid lactation at the dry off him.

So we at the start of the study designed it to make this happen. This ended up with about just under 400 cows in the no trim group and then around 200 cows in each of the other trimming groups. It's not exactly equal, there was always gonna be more in the control group because of the design of the study.

And then just natural loss. We did give the trimmer the option to decide to convince the farmer and to have the trimmer on board to say if you think there's any cow that you see that is an obvious need of a trimming, you can trim that cow and we won't include her in the follow-up study. So just to give you a sense of that, there's 56 cows that were, so there's really about 425 cows that are eligible for the study, and then the trimmer said, well, I want to trim this 56 cows cause I think she needs to trimming cause she's got long toes or other things that were happening.

And then we followed those cows to their next hoof trimming. For the majority of the cows, that was, their, dry off trim coming up, so we had just under 600 cows available for that study. We've looked at the same lesions, so it's thin so, so ulcers, white lines, and digital dermatitis.

If we look at the no trim category, just under 70% of lesions, no thin soles in that category, and then you can see the numbers on the screen there. Somewhat surprisingly, more lesions compared to the other study. It's a little unfair to compare them because we were dealing with 3 herds in the other, the trimming modelling technique study.

And only one herd in this one, so this might have been a higher prevalence herd. Then if we look at the little model, just under 20% of lesions, and some thin cells, a bit a few more so ulcers, a few more white lines, and a little digital dermatitis. Then if we look at our big model, just under 22%.

Of cows when we looked at this, right? So, same number of thin so, a few more soul ulcers, few more white lines. The white line issue in the herd that we're dealing with is a common issue.

It's actually the lesion they struggle with the most and it's a bit of an indicator of the design of the system because these cows are walking the furthest they've been exposed to recycled sand more and the trimmer and the dairy person, the dairy owner is very, she's very worried about white line. So the tremor records probably excessively for white lines to kind of cover himself in case the cow comes back with white lines. So I'm not surprised with the increase of white line numbers, but just to give you a bit of background about it.

So when we looked at the numbers, I'm sure if you go back and look at that as well, that doesn't look good and if he tells me that trimming is a good thing, he's a liar, so the stats don't lie. We use some Bayesian statistics to try and get out because I have an interest in start developing an interest in Bayesian statistics. So I'm gonna present you the credibility intervals.

So basically, if we compare the big model versus no trimming, we can get an estimate ranging from it's either helps or hurts. So that's kind of what this 0.8 to 2.2 indicates of the odds saying that it's 2.2% more likely to have a lesion versus 20% less likely to have a lesion, that's kind of our range of our estimates.

What we think it could be similarly for the little model, we're saying there isn't much of a difference and it might be harmful or it might be beneficial with this study, we can't really tell. So that's kind of our conclusion from the mid lactation that overall there's no evidence for a difference between them. So what does this all mean?

What do I do with that information? What do I tell this dairy owner, what do I tell this very sharp PhD educated dairy manager, what do I tell him to do? What do I tell her to do actually?

So that left a big question. So I am a big believer in that we need to use trimming data for something useful on the farm. I don't believe you should collect them just so Nick and I can look at them and say, yeah, that's fine.

So if we look at the trimming data on this dairy, so this is a graph out of dairy comp, trying to get Nick's cursor to show up, but it doesn't. So on the bottom we have days in milk. And then we have count of events on the Y axis and then we have kind of events.

So if we look at 100 days in milk peak, and those are all the lesions that happen, and that lesion peak happens because that's when we cows go through the trimming chute and then the cows go through the trimming shoot again about 250 days for the dry off trims. So on this dairy, the hoof trimmer actually functions as the lame cow detector. There's a few cows that get detected early in lactation, but most of the cows with lesion gets found by the hoof trimmer.

So in this dairy, if I told the owner, I actually showed the data to the owner, and she said, so if I get better at finding lame cows, I don't need the mid lactation trim. And I was, that's the recommendation I made to her. If you get better at finding these lame cows, then on your dairy, I don't think you need the mid lactation gym.

It's not helping you in this scenario. And I think, having spent some time in the well having spent a week in the UK I've been to several herds where I wonder if that's the same scenario we could be playing out we need to be considering, because there is an economic cost to trimming and there's also behavioural cost and milk production cost to it. I'm just trying to get a sense of time, so Sarah doesn't cut me off.

So we did that, talked about trimming, so that's pretty much clear as mine, right? So, what do we go forward with this? So we talked a little bit about trimming techniques.

Nick covered some of that just to kind of give you a sense when we say there's very few studies. There's really when, so my graduate student, Doctor Grant Slaughter and I kind of did a lit review, there's really only 16 English language studies that have had a control group when they looked at trimming studies. And if we look at that a little further, only 6 studies described the how and when, right?

So that's 6 studies if we count the 2 I did, it's really 1. So there's 7 studies that have been published that describe how and when to trim. If we read closely read the methods, it says we did the 5-step functional trimming method.

Well, as the data that Sarah has shown and Nick has shown, what does that really mean? Where did you measure from? What was your sole thingness?

Did you spare to heal? How much modelling happened? That's not very well described in these studies.

So what do we take this with, right? We're gonna skip this for the interest of time, so excuse the slides. Scattering cause I'd like to leave some time for questions.

But I think the two things, it's kind of like when I look at styles, the cows have the answer. So I have two criteria when it comes to judging trimming. The first thing I want to happen is that if lame cows get better, they need to get better as soon as possible, and I'd probably say as fast as possible, right?

So if we can gain a technique that gets cows. Better a week, that's something I want to do because I think from the work that's been done out of Nottingham, if we control that inflammation in the foot as fast as possible, we'll probably helping these cows faster. So that's one criteria when I'm talking to say, OK, what are you doing?

What are we doing? But my whole goal with this is how do we get lame cows to be as fast as possible. The other thing I want is that healthy cows stay healthy, so none of these cows go lame after.

So Nick presented some data that said, well, maybe we trim these cows, and they got lame. Right? If that's happening, then we need to question why are we trimming and what are we doing?

And because of that, if I, those are my two criteria, I don't spend a lot of time arguing about trimming methods to say if this is happening and you're trimming and I need to look at your trimming job and close my eyes and turn away cause I don't want to say anything bad, but you're meeting these two criteria, I'm OK with that. But if you're not, then I want you to trim in a certain method and that would be using the functional trimming method with a big model, but Because I have, in our experience, we can get these two things to happen. I think both Nick and I would agree that if we get a good tremor in the dairy that's struggling, we can turn herds around.

It takes about a year, but we can turn these herds around. OK? Just to quickly talk a little bit about behaviour.

I mentioned there's a cost of trimming, so there's actually physical cost, the cost of actually asking the trimmer, paying the trimmer, but there's also a behavioural and metabolic cost to trimming. So if we look at some data, so when we trimmed this, when we did the study, we're doing this on a dairy that had daily milk weights. So what we did is as well, we have two groups going through the shoot shoot or the crush, as you would say.

So we have cows going through the crush, one group's being trimmed, one group's not being trimmed, and is there a difference in these cows and how they perform. So if we look at milk production, oh, there's a cursor. On the Y axis, we have what these cows started out with.

So the top line is cows that were trimmed, milk in about 57 kilogrammes in the 5 day average before and just under 56 kilogrammes before. So these are mid lactation cows they should be milking, pumping out the milk. Then we have the day of hoof trimming, no surprise, there's some milk loss, but that milk los persist for at least a day and then they slowly come back up and they go through.

I wouldn't say that they, so just by chance, the cows we don't roll were milking about 1 kilogramme less if they weren't trimmed, but that's, that's the way some studies go. But even more interesting, so we're doing a procedure that's decreasing milk production for a few days. But it also changes behaviour.

This is a study we did with some firms, 2 firms in the UK and 2 firms, thanks to Sarah and two firms in Canada where we had information from a pedometers and say, OK, we can, what happens to cows when they trim? Does their behaviour change? If you look in the literature, some studies say, well, if we trim a cow, she actually starts to lay down more and that's a sign of lameness, so that's probably not a good thing.

So I said, well, that's not true. I believe trimming is a good thing. So let's actually get some more data and different herds and see what happens.

Well, to my surprise, if we have the Y axis here on this side here, we have, activities, a number of steps, and then here we have resting time. And then we have the two different graphs of the solid line is activity and the dash line is resting time. So we have a baseline, which is the 5 day average before trimming, and then we have the day hoof trimming.

And then we highlighted kind of the day of trimming in each of these herds. And what becomes clear is that in some herds, activity goes up on the day of trimming, no surprise, but then there's a drop, and these cows don't recover. And conversely, we have a drop in resting time, makes sense, cows are away from routine, and then they go up and try to recoup that resting time, but they stay higher than the baseline after trimming in this herd.

This is farm worm, this is a herd in the UK. Another herd in the UK. Almost no difference between, and then two herds in Canada, some variation.

And then another herd in Canada where we have a big drop, and then they change and resting time stays high again too. So I think what we need to think about is how do we do, how do we process cows for trimming? What happens on the day of trimming?

Cause having them away, both these two farm 1 and farm 4 are processing herds in bigger batches, so these cows are spending more time away, whereas I know on farm two, the small groups of cows, 2 or 3. Magically happens, we didn't touch the screen, but this is what happens, right? So things, these things are farm dependent, there's probably things we can learn from farms 2 and maybe farm 3 saying OK, what are you doing to not have this happen.

So this is to kind of summarise and then we can wrap up for some questions. I'm still a believer that we used, used to use the big model, of course, I'd love to see more data, but I haven't been convinced to move away from that position. I think we definitely needed to trim that dry off.

I think every cow needs to be checked and dry off. I think as hers get bigger, that becomes easier to accomplish. And then I would argue you probably need to trim twice in lower herds.

In highway herds, I'm not convinced we need to. If you are very good at finding lame cows. If you're finding very good at finding lame cows, then I question the need for having a twice a year trimming recommendation.

Then I think one thing we need to think about is how do we minimise the disruption on trim day. So it's kind of summarising, none of this work would have been possible without my research firms, hoof trimmers of veinarians, and students and collaborators, and you can think of this as my conflict of interest statements. All these people have given me money or support in one way, shape, or form.

So if you think I'm biassed, you can blame these people. Hopefully it indicates that. Anybody that's willing to support my research, I'll take money from and we'll try to do the best we can, but that's kind of the support.

And this to conclude, I think as a hoof trimmer, of course, I think the way I trim is the best way. As a researcher, I realised that trying to study trimming method is really difficult and takes a lot of resources and as a veterinarian, If I boil it down to two things. Do lame cows get better and do healthy cows stay healthy?

And I think if those two criteria are true, then there isn't much to argue about and that's what we should be considering saying, OK, what method gives us those two results. What's that? I'd like to conclude and Sarah can take us back and fire us questions cause I hope there's lots.

Oh, and if you do have some resources or questions, Nick made up a list of some key research papers that we use in the study. Feel free to ask us for more or contact us if you want more details, but there's lots of work. If you really want to dig into the trimming research, we just both Nick and I have published kind of reviews of that stuff, so Google our names and you'll probably find some trimming-related papers and then there's other resources too.

And one last thing. That we want to remind you of is, oops, that's taking over, oops. There's a master class coming up next Monday, so if you haven't heard enough of us or you wanna expand or ask us some questions about this stuff, next Monday is your day.

Come talk to us. We're having a master class. We have a very interactive and fun workshop planned.

We're actually not gonna do a lot of talking. We're gonna do a lot of guiding and facilitating and you're gonna do a lot of thinking, so we hope to see somebody out there, and then there's some other, there's another webinar coming up too that you should be of interest in. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much, Gerard and to Nick for your absolutely brilliant presentations and you've given us a great overview of the current position when it comes to hoof trimming, research and regulation and really.

Quite concerning that we haven't got more evidence behind, something that we do to thousands of cows every day across the UK. So before we do go to questions, and we are just going to run on, just a little bit over time, I'm afraid, just so that we can answer some questions. Please put them in the Q&A box rather than the webinar chat, so the Q&A box is at the bottom of your, of your screen, just wiggle your mouse if you can't see it.

There's also going to be a feedback, survey that should be opening up in a new browser. Please just take 30 seconds just to complete the feedback survey so we can hear, what, what you'd like to hear about in the future and how you found this webinar tonight. So, I'm going to open now, we're just gonna have a couple of questions.

We have got quite a few coming in, but, I'm just gonna pick up on, a couple here. Now, one for you, Gerard, from Tom who's asking about your modelling. So the big versus, small modelling survey, research that you did.

How important do you think is the depth of the model? Did you standardise for this within your research? Do you think it makes a difference?

You would assume a deeper model would last for longer, but is there a trade-off with being too thin? So it's a great question. We did try to standardise it as much as we could.

The guidance I gave the tremors is I want you to go to basically one swipe before touching the corum, so quite thin, so digital pressure, so if it was at the toe, you'd be very, very concerned. That was our guidance. I didn't stand over the shoulder every day when they were trimming.

I, we did make random spot checks and brought, she brought in some cows to check the modelling. The thing we have to remember, it's very hard to standardise the thickness, cause it's totally dependent on the heel depth that exists on the cow's foot, and we can't control that. So a cow with a lot of heel depth, we can model more, whereas in these recycled sand bedding herds or even sandbed herds, the heel depths isn't the same, so the depth of the model isn't always as consistent.

I wanted, I pushed them as far as I felt comfortable pushing them. For the model, but it's very hard to standardise. We consider standardising it, but that becomes very difficult to do and would have required me probably to look at 10,000 cows to get standardised categories to look at that.

It's a great question. Thank you very much for your answer. So I've got a question here for Nick, from Patricia, in the UK study, did the heifers that were seen as lame in the two-week mobility scoring get a treatment trim, and then were they then subsequently included in the study later on?

So, the, the farm was notified, of the, the accounts that were mobility scored 2, and they were left to make their own decision about whether they were. They they were treated straight away or not. So obviously, so a lot of the issues there were to do with bruising and thin soles and so that those, those heifers, they wouldn't have all been treated.

So, there were recorded treatments, available, on those farms, but, yeah, I can't, can't say any more about definitely how many were treated and how many weren't, but. They remained in the, in the study for the duration, yes. OK, thank you very much.

Now, one, we're just gonna do one last question, and this is a question for Gerard. Sorry, I know that you have to transfer your headset over again. So, Gerard, this is a question regarding your advice to your, your farm, in terms of the mid lactation trim, and we're seeing that big peak, spike in, in lesions that we're seeing on, on the graph that you showed.

Would there be a case, rather than just identifying laying cows earlier, because maybe they're not already doing that effectively, which is why their mid lactation trim is more of a lane cow detection trim. Would there be an argument for actually moving the preventative trim earlier, say, to 80 days, so that they're inspecting then, maybe doing a bigger model such that you're preventing bruising, etc. Going on to becoming a proper soul ulcer?

So, maybe, I struggle with that question because, I don't believe the lesions we're seeing at 100 days of milk we could prevent. I'm pretty sure I'm relatively confident that those lesions are already there at 80 days of milk and we would just shift the graph 2030 days and find the cows then. So I don't think we can necessarily find them if the farm's not very good at it.

If I in any farm when I look at the records and I see peaks and lesions around the roof trimming, I become very reluctant to say that's when these cows are becoming lame cause I don't know about the lesion. And if we dig a little deeper in the records, so we actually start seeing that the cows that they find at the mid lactation germ don't recover as well as the cows that they find earlier. So to me it's a bit of chronicity that's happening.

So I'd like to think as a trimmer, yes, I can shift that trimming and maybe we need to do it earlier. But then I look at the other data, if I'm already losing 1 kilogramme of milk for 1 or 2 or 3 days, at 100 days of milk, how much milk am I gonna lose when I'm doing that at 80 days of milk when they're even making even more milk? I don't know the answer to that, so I think that's I need more data.

The other thing we did measure in our study, which I'm now regretting us for so many Doctor Huxley or John Huxley told us we were silly for not doing it, it was looking at haemorrhaging and bruising. I have a hard time standardising that between my tremors, so it would have been rather useful thing to measure because there might have been differences there, but, so the short answer to the question is I don't have an answer. Maybe the check would be beneficial.

We find them earlier, but I still think For dairies to really make a difference in lameness, we have to focus on finding that lame cow. As early as possible. Yes, prevention is key, but if I look at my lesion numbers for soul ulcers and digital dermatitis, there's not a lot of it.

Right, so how much, how low can I bring it with another intervention of trimming? Can I drop it to 1%? So I gonna go from 3% to 1% for so ulcers?

I'm not sure. I don't know, right? And that's, I think where it gets complicated and This is still her specific, I think, or like system specific more than anything else.

So sorry for a long-winded noncommittal answer, but I think the short answer is it's from dependent and Focus on finding lame cows. Yeah. I think it just confirms that we need a lot more research done in this area.

Come to my total dairy talk and I would dispel that myth too, but I think we know enough to make a difference. Let's put it that way. We know enough to make a difference.

There's things around the edges that are gonna fine tune things, but we know enough to make a difference. We shouldn't let our lack of having all the answers stop us from making a difference on dairies, cause I think My conclusion from the 3 field studies I've done, we get these low prevalences. In all these studies, if we take out the chronic cows, and that's what all these studies do, if we take out all the chronic cows, cause that's the cows we're trying to intervent on the healthy cows, that's when we make a difference.

These chronic cows are what's polluting our view of lameness. If we Take out the chronic cows that are there and we can't do this. We don't really generate a lot of new lame cows.

It's the chronic cows that make us pollute our vision and know we have a lot of lameness on this area. Well, let's the chronic cows? What can we do to prevent chronic cows?

Find them earlier, right? Prevent them, of course, but I think to prevent chronic cows, we need to find them early and treat them cause they're not linked to data would suggest at least in the birds I work with. We're not generating a lot of new cases of lameness.

They just pretty much all of them become chronic at some point, and we need to address that part of it. So what you're trying to say is that we need to address prevention, then everybody needs to come along to the lamest masterclass next Monday. Yes, cause then we can talk about, we're gonna be at the shoot side and we can talk about how do we treat these chronic cows appropriately or cases they don't become chronic, perfect segue.

Brilliant. Well, we are going to wrap up there because we have gone, over time, but everybody has held on. So thank you very much to everybody tonight.

There are just a couple of dates for your diary that are just there on your screen. Our next webinar is actually, Tuesday, the 20th of August, where we've got managing the block carving Herd with Dave Gilbert, and also registration, is now open for the Congress, our congress, which is in Southport this year in October. So I just want to finish up by saying a huge thank you, to Nick and to Gerard, for their presentations tonight, but also to all of you who have passed this, who have attended tonight's webinar and participated, in both the questions and also the polling.

And we look forward to you joining us again in August. So thank you very much, everybody, and goodnight.