Lameness affects 5-15% of sheep in many flocks and causes significant chronic pain. Systematic prevention and early treatment programs dramatically reduce flock lameness prevalence.
Sheep lameness is one of the most prevalent and persistent welfare problems in UK and global sheep farming, causing chronic pain that affects individual welfare across weeks to months when untreated. The behavioral manifestations of lameness pain — reduced grazing, weight loss, body condition decline, and poor reproductive performance — compound the initial welfare cost with secondary production impacts. Evidence-based lameness control programs (Five Point Plan) achieve dramatic reductions in flock lameness prevalence through systematic biosecurity, early treatment, vaccination, and footbathing. The critical welfare intervention is early identification and treatment — lame sheep identified within three days and treated promptly have much better outcomes than those identified later. Farmer training in locomotion scoring, rapid treatment protocols, and biosecurity reduces the chronic welfare burden at flock level. Regular locomotion scoring as a welfare metric creates accountability for lameness prevention.