Lameness and Orthopaedics

The UCDVH Farm Animal Team offers a wide range of expertise and referral consultancy services in the areas of lameness and orthopaedics. Individual lame cows and bulls can be managed safely and efficiently in our superb rotating crush for the purposes of foot trimming and surgeries of the distal limbs. The UCDVH is Ireland’s Centre of Excellence for the diagnosis and management of orthopaedic conditions in cattle, sheep and other farm animals. Our team includes a number of European specialists in Bovine Health Management and we work closely with the world class surgeons, anaesthetists and radiologists in the UCDVH. In addition to the professional services we offer in relation to the individual animal, the UCDVH Farm Animal Team are also recognised as leaders in the provision of Herd Health Consultancy and Referral services on the island of Ireland. Lameness investigations are routinely carried out at the request of veterinary practitioners throughout the country, and involve locomotion scoring, lesion identification, housing assessments and the implementation of control programmes for both infectious and non-infectious foot lameness in cattle. Similarly, flock lameness investigations are also routinely and successfully performed by the team.