The Challenge
Moreton Farm is a well-run 440-cow dairy in Wrexham, North Wales. The team were already doing the right things. They had structured hoof health protocols in place, a working relationship with their foot trimmer, and a genuine commitment to animal welfare. By most measures, they were ahead of where many herds operate.
But good detection rewards early information, and that's precisely where even well-managed farms can fall short. The issue was simply the inevitable limits of human observation across a large herd. A cow might walk with a subtle change in gait for days before anyone can reasonably be expected to notice. By the time she gets pulled for treatment, the condition may have already progressed.
What the team needed wasn't a different protocol, they needed to see things sooner - consistently, objectively, and without placing extra demands on a workforce that was already stretched.
Why CattleEye
Moreton Farm adopted CattleEye as part of the Farming Connect Healthy Feet Programme, a Coleg Cambria-supported initiative designed to reduce lameness prevalence across Welsh dairy herds. The fit made sense on a practical level. CattleEye is installed using standard 2D cameras positioned at the milking parlour exit - cameras that farms often already have or that can be put in place without specialist engineering work. There are no wearables, no tags, and nothing that changes the daily routine of the herd.
Once installed, the system spends seven days learning to identify each individual cow by her unique combination of body shape and coat pattern. After that initial period, every cow receives a mobility score at every milking, building a continuous picture of herd health rather than the periodic snapshots that monthly vet scoring or manual observation provides. The scoring is objective and consistent in a way that human assessment, however experienced, simply cannot be across an entire herd every single day of the year.
The daily output is a prioritised list outlining which animals have changed, which scores are trending in the wrong direction, which cows need the foot trimmer's attention. The team at Moreton didn't have to change what they did, they just had much clearer information about who they needed to do it to, and when.
The Results
Working alongside the Healthy Feet Programme and a structured trimming schedule, the farm achieved a 75% reduction in sole ulcers between two consecutive calving seasons. That figure, validated through the Farming Connect trial, reflects what happens when early detection becomes routine rather than occasional.
The mechanism is worth understanding, because the headline number understates the broader effect. Sole ulcers that are caught at the subclinical stage — when a cow is beginning to shift her weight or slightly alter her stride — respond to treatment far better than those identified when a cow is visibly and seriously lame. Treatment is quicker, recovery is faster, and the cow is back producing at her normal level sooner. Multiply that across a herd of 440, and the cumulative improvement in yield, reproductive performance, and cow longevity is substantial.
Independent research from the University of Liverpool values a single lameness case at £330, accounting for reduced milk production, treatment costs, extended calving intervals, and the increased risk of premature culling. The farm isn't in a position to put a precise figure on its total saving — and we wouldn't want to speculate on their behalf — but a 75% reduction in one of the most economically damaging conditions in dairy farming is a result that speaks clearly enough on its own terms.
In Their Own Words
"One of our focuses over the last year has been to improve the early detection of lameness through the installation of CattleEye, a validated automated lameness detection system. Alongside implementation of the Healthy Feet Programme and working closely with our foot trimmer, we've seen a huge improvement and have dramatically reduced sole ulcers."
Lewis Jones, Moreton Farm, Wrexham
What This Farm Shows
Moreton Farm isn't a flagship research site or a large commercial operation with a dedicated technology team. It's a working Welsh dairy that was already managing its herd well and wanted to manage it better. The result — a 75% reduction in sole ulcers over a single calving cycle — came not from changing the fundamentals of how the farm operates, but from adding a layer of consistent, objective daily data to a programme that was already sound.
That's what CattleEye actually does in practice. It doesn't replace the foot trimmer, the vet, or the farmer's knowledge of their own herd. It fills the gap that manual observation can't fill — the daily picture of 440 animals, each scored, each tracked, each visible in a way that simply wasn't possible before.
