Data on a survey conducted with farmers on lameness in cows in grazing dairy farms visited twice in Brazil, 2015

The dataset is the result of a cross-sectional survey conducted with farmers in small-scale grazing dairy herds in Brazil. All the farms (n = 44) were visited twice in 2015. We applied a questionnaire on a common health and welfare issue in dairy cattle worldwide: lameness (abnormal locomotion). In addition, a trained veterinarian in gait scoring assessed the locomotion of all the lactating cows at the farms. The main interest we had with the present research was to know how much the farmers knew about lameness in dairy cows, what was the relative importance of lameness within the dairy herd common health issues, how aware the farmers were regarding the occurrence of this problem, and what preventative measures were used at the farms. We found that lameness was a common issue at the visited farms and also that farmers found lameness a secondary health problem at their farms. The farmers made estimates of lameness prevalence that were lower than the veterinarian's estimates. The farmers did not practice commonly preventative measures to avoid the occurrence of lameness. This information is important in order to design preventative veterinary approach in small-scale dairy farms in Brazil and may be useful to think on building population medicine strategies in small-scale dairy farms in another countries. Altogether the information is a good evidence that the control and prevention animal health issues require more than technical solutions: also, human perspectives should be considered