A pilot study to determine the production and health benefits of milking visibly lame cows twice daily compared with three times daily

A randomized clinical trial was conducted on lame cows to study the effect of milking frequency on milk production, lameness prevalence, and body condition score (BCS). At the beginning of the study, the entire herd of lactating Holstein dairy cows was visual locomotion scored (VLS) by 2 trained veterinarians. Lame cows (VLS > 2) were eligible for the study. The initial study population consisted of 270 cows randomly allocated to the three-times-daily milking frequency group (MFG) and 230 cows randomly allocated to the twice-daily MFG. Milking frequencies did not significantly affect average milk production. Cows in the twice-daily MFG had a significant increase in BCS, however, compared with cows in the three-times-daily MFG (P-value < 0.001). In addition, the probability of lameness in cows in the three-times-daily MFG was 36% higher than for cows in the twice-daily milking routine (P-value = 0.006).