Lameness affects approximately one in four dairy cows in intensive systems and represents one of the most significant and most preventable sources of pain in modern agriculture.
Lame cows are in pain. Gait scoring studies show that the majority of scored-lame cows have lesions that in other species would prompt immediate analgesic treatment. The economic cost of lameness — reduced milk yield, early culling, treatment costs — aligns partially with welfare incentives, but producer awareness of lameness as a welfare issue rather than just a productivity problem drives more comprehensive prevention approaches. Lameness is not inevitable: farms that implement comprehensive prevention programs achieve prevalence below 5 percent. The gap between this achievable level and the 25 to 30 percent prevalence on average farms represents an enormous burden of preventable chronic pain across the dairy sector.