Lameness is one of the most prevalent and welfare-significant conditions in dairy cattle, causing chronic pain that affects millions of animals globally — yet it is preventable with appropriate housing, management, and monitoring.
Bovine lameness is a welfare problem where the evidence base, practical solutions, and economic incentives are well-aligned — lame cows have lower milk production, shorter productive lives, and higher culling rates. The persistence of high lameness prevalence despite known solutions reflects implementation gaps rather than knowledge gaps. Farm assurance schemes that include herd lameness prevalence targets and require regular lameness scoring are the primary lever for improvement at industry scale.