Digital Dermatitis: The Most Prevalent Infectious Claw Disease in Dairy Cattle
Digital dermatitis (Mortellaro disease) is now endemic in most dairy herds globally and causes chronic pain requiring active, sustained control programs.
Key Facts
- Digital dermatitis is caused by Treponema spirochete bacteria and is now present in most dairy herds worldwide
- It causes painful ulcerative lesions on the skin above the heel of the claw
- Affected cows show severe lameness with the characteristic flinching response to lesion contact
- Foot bathing, individual treatment, and culling of chronically affected cows are control pillars
- Once established in a herd, digital dermatitis cannot be eradicated — only controlled
Welfare Considerations
Digital dermatitis causes one of the most painful and prevalent welfare problems in modern dairy cattle production. The Treponema bacterial infection creates ulcerative lesions that are exquisitely painful on contact — a diagnostic touch causes the characteristic flinch and withdrawal response. Chronic active lesions cause severe lameness affecting feed intake, body condition, and reproductive performance. Once a herd is infected, the disease becomes endemic and requires ongoing active control rather than eradication. The welfare standard for digital dermatitis control requires: regular foot bathing with effective solution changes, locomotion scoring to detect lame cows, prompt individual antibiotic treatment of active lesions, and herd-level monitoring of lesion prevalence to assess control program effectiveness.
What You Can Do
- Implement a structured digital dermatitis control program with your herd veterinarian
- Foot bath with zinc sulfate or other effective solutions at least twice weekly during high-risk periods
- Locomotion score monthly and treat all cows with active M2 lesions individually with topical oxytetracycline
- Monitor lesion prevalence at hoof trimming visits to benchmark control program effectiveness
- Target a M2 active lesion prevalence below 10% of the herd as a welfare key performance indicator