[Incidence of hoof diseases in cows raised using new technologies]

Investigations were carried out on three farms in the Republic of Cuba with 942 cows (Holstein-Zebu crosses) as well as on the Agro-Industrial Complexes in the Stara Zagora and Sliven districts of the People's Republic of Bulgaria with a total of 19,065 cows of the Black-and-white and the Brown Bulgarian breed under various conditions of raising technologies. The work study aimed at establishing the percent of the so-called 'barn hooves' associated with the clinical forms of some diseases. It was found that the percent of deformed hooves was 5-6 with cows that had daily exercise movements, up to 10-with cows having limited movements, and up to 51 and more-with animals deprived of movement. Almost all cows that had deformed hooves as the result of the barn regime of raising showed injuries of the sole and pulvinar matrix and, commonly, of the entire hooves, up to 37 percent of them manifesting a definite clinical form of a disease.