Clinical characterization of a syndrome by ecopathology methods: an example of dairy cow lameness.

In 1987, an ecopathology survey was carried out in 160 French dairy farms. Its primary objective was to clinically characterize laminitis and heelhorn erosion in order to identify the risk factors of these affections. A total of 4,896 cows were individually monitored. Observation of podal lesions of each cow allowed us to identify associations between different lesions (by correspondence analysis) and between lesions and lameness (by multiple logistic regression) and thus to characterize 3 distinctive pathologies: chronic laminitis, subacute laminitis and heelhorn erosion.