Jayden Palmer has been around hoof trimming almost as long as he can remember. His grandfather started building hoof-trimming chutes after running a small dairy, and his father followed with a career trimming cows. Palmer started tagging along when he was about 6 years old, trained to trim cattle at 16 and was working on his own by 18. Today, he works alongside his father in Idaho, where the family operates a hoof-trimming business and J&L Hoof Products.
Over the years, Palmer has watched the dairy industry’s approach to hoof health change. Producers, he says, are paying more attention to what lameness costs and what they can do to prevent it. That shift is important because, in Palmer’s view, hoof health isn’t an isolated issue.
“People tend to think that hoof health is just hoof health. That it only affects itself,” Palmer says. “But I like to think of it as a three category circle where it’s hoof health, metabolic health and stress. All of them affect each other.”
A cow dealing with one problem may be more likely to develop another. Palmer points to nutrition, stocking density and other management factors as part of that bigger picture. He says the push for more milk and more cows can create additional challenges when cows become overcrowded or when other aspects of management aren’t keeping pace.
Start With Maintenance
For Palmer, one of the biggest opportunities is moving away from a hoof-health program that waits for problems to become obvious. That starts with the basics: a safe, well-designed trimming area, good cow flow, consistent scheduling, appropriate feed and water, and clear standard operating procedures. It also means trimming cows regularly instead of waiting for dry-off or a visible lameness problem.
“I expect a maintenance program to be there,” Palmer says. “A problem that I’ve seen is only trimming at dry off and lame cows. That’s just not enough. We need to be more proactive.”
Building that kind of program requires good training. Palmer’s company provides roughly two months of training for new trimmers, with additional follow-up when needed. He says even experienced trimmers need continued education because it’s easy for people to develop their own habits over time. One of those habits can be focusing too much on how a hoof looks rather than what it needs to function properly.
“They try to make it look really good,” Palmer says. “Sometimes it looking really good actually is worse for the hoof because they usually takes too much off. That’s probably the hardest part, getting them to balance out looking pretty versus function.”
Just because a hoof looks different from what someone expects doesn’t necessarily mean a hoof was trimmed incorrectly.
Build a Shared Understanding
That is where Palmer sees a role for the entire dairy team. Managers and employees don’t necessarily need to become hoof trimmers, but understanding what the trimmer is doing and why can make a difference. Palmer recalls working with a dairy where employees became more involved, watched the trimming process, asked questions and learned what the team was looking for. That shared knowledge helped establish trust and reduced second-guessing.
“It changes the game because now we’re on the same page about what the hoof should look like and why we’re doing it a certain way,” Palmer says. “It takes away the questioning of each other and it builds that trust and that culture that I feel like the A+ dairies need.”
The same communication can extend to the herd veterinarian. The veterinarian’s involvement will look different on a 100-cow dairy than on a much larger operation. On large dairies, Palmer sees value in having someone specifically responsible for hoof health while keeping that person and the veterinarian aligned on protocols and the overall herd-health plan. He would also like to see more opportunities for veterinarians to work directly with professional hoof trimmers.
That collaboration can help prevent misunderstandings about trimming decisions. Palmer gives the example of a hoof where extra horn is intentionally left in place. Someone without an understanding of the reasoning might assume the cow wasn’t trimmed enough, creating pressure to remove more than is appropriate.
Put the Data to Work
Digital records can help make those management decisions more objective. Palmer says he wants to move away from what he calls the “paper train” and toward digital hoof-health records that allow dairies to see patterns across the herd. If a large percentage of cows have digital dermatitis, for example, that may point toward a hygiene or footbath issue. Records can also help identify patterns by lactation, diagnosis or time period.
He also looks at an individual cow’s history when something doesn’t make sense. In one recent case, Palmer found an unusual abscess and went back through the cow’s history. She had no trimming history and had experienced a fever several months earlier. That additional context helped him understand the current hoof problem.
“I look at all of it,” he says.
Technology can add another layer. Palmer is particularly interested in AI cameras that monitor cows as they leave the milking facility and flag changes in locomotion. He has seen systems that initially flag a lot of cows before becoming more accurate as they are dialed in. The cameras aren’t necessarily identifying hoof problems specifically. Palmer has seen cows flagged because of leg or hip injuries and even mastitis-related discomfort.
To learn more about the implementation of cameras and AI to monitor cattle lameness, check out this story with producer Tyler Ribeiro.
For Palmer, the important point is that a flagged cow gets another look. The technology can help identify animals that might otherwise be missed, while the dairy team still has to determine why a cow is moving differently and what needs to happen next.
The Next Challenge: Culture
As dairies get larger, Palmer expects hoof-health programs to become more proactive, with more farms establishing their own trimming programs, improving facilities and putting greater emphasis on routine maintenance. He sees technology and data becoming increasingly useful, but thinks the harder challenge may be keeping large teams working toward the same goal.
“Keeping everyone on the same page will be paramount, especially as dairies continue to scale in size,” Palmer says. “How do we have a healthy culture where we’re all on the same page, we all expect the same things, and we’re not like pointing the finger at each other?”
That idea brings Palmer’s approach back to where it started: hoof health is part of a larger herd-health system, and everyone involved has a role in it.
His preferred direction for the industry is straightforward.
“Being proactive instead of reactive,” he says. “Having the maintenance programs and finding what could be improved rather than waiting for disasters to happen and or or just treating the lameness problems. Be proactive, not reactive.”
To hear more from Jayden Palmer on hoof health and lameness, as well as insights from producer Tyler Ribeiro, check out the most recent episode of ‘The Bovine Vet Podcast’:
