Editorial. 2017. Reducing lameness in sheep: new approach recommended. Veterinary Record 180(23), 555.

Farm vets can recommend that sheep farmers stop routine foot trimming to treat lameness in their flocks. Instead, they should treat cases of footrot, the major cause of lameness, with an injectable antibiotic and a topical spray within three days of the sheep becoming lame. Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that foot trimming is not an effective treatment. They carried out a study of 53 lame sheep on a commercial sheep farm in England and administered four different treatments to investigate which would be the most effective after five days of treatment. Injection of an antibiotic in combination with a topical spray was found to reduce lameness by 70 per cent after five days of treatment, whereas the traditional method of foot trimming and using a topical spray only reduced lameness by 10 per cent.