2000 dairy farmers now prevent Mortellaro with MS AutoHoofClean

Aubry Gicquel installed MS AutoHoofClean in his farm a few weeks ago. Nothing special for a dairy farmer dealing with Mortellaro’s disease, right? Yet it is a unique milestone, as Aubry is the 2,000th farmer to choose MS AutoHoofClean to address the issue.

Located in Loudéac, in western France, Aubry manages a herd of 120 Prim’Holstein dairy cows. His cows are beautiful, and the judges don’t miss it. Aubry regularly showcases them in competitions, where they are achieving impressive results, as they did at the last SPACE in Rennes (France).

My herd was affected by Digital Dermatitis, like everyone else’s, but it wasn't catastrophic. To control it, I tried classical footbaths. My goal was to do it every 15 days, but it was time-consuming, and at the end, I stopped. As soon as I stopped using the footbath, Mortellaro came back.

The herd is checked monthly by a hooftrimmer. Unfortunately, towards the end, he was doing more curative than preventive work. On the last check, I had 20 cows with Dermatitis out of the 20 cows he trimmed.

To tackle the problem, I was convinced that automating collective treatment was necessary. I discovered MS AutoHoofClean through Facebook, and one of my neighbors had installed it before me.

I met Aude Gurval, a hoof health specialist from Schippers, to assess the feasibility for my farm. I had to adjust the robot exit area to position the two 2-meter-long mats, but it didn’t cause any major issues. The cows adapted well to this new setup after leaving the milking robot.

I have an appointment with Aude in a few weeks to review the situation and check for any changes in the lesions.