Digital dermatitis (DD) can cause lameness and pain in dairy cows. The objective of this 11-wk study, conducted at the University of Kentucky Coldstream Dairy Research Farm, was to test the effects of electrolyzed water, in a copper sulfate solution on DD. A split, plastic footbath was used to deliver 2 footbath solutions. The control solution, assigned to the left hooves of the cow, contained 79.5 L of water with 1.75 kg of copper sulfate, and 325 mL of acidifier. The treatment solution, assigned to the right hooves of the cows, contained the same solution as the control side with the addition of 7.5 L of electrolyzed water. The footbath solutions were made Monday thru Friday before morning milkings. Cows walked through the footbath while exiting the milking parlor once a day. The solutions were dumped after the completion of morning milkings. Holstein cows (n = 77) DD were scored biweekly in the milking parlor to determine active or inactive DD. Rear hooves were hosed off to remove debris before being evaluated. A headlamp was worn to provide clarity of hooves while scoring. The FREQ Procedure of SAS (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC) was used for a chi-squared analysis and a McNemar’s test was used to compare the number of hooves with active DD (scores of M1 and M2) to the number of hooves with non-active DD (scores of M3 and M4). No significant differences in DD between the control and treatment groups existed (P > 0.05); however, over the course of the study, both footbath solutions improved DD overall (Table 1; P < 0.01). These results suggest that the addition of electrolyzed water in a footbath solution had no negative effect on DD. Table 1.

Occurrence	Control	Treatment
No lesion at baseline and no lesion at end	67	64
No lesion at baseline and lesion at end	0	0
Lesion at baseline and no lesion at end	8	12
Lesion at baseline and lesion at end	2	1