Cow Kicks?

MarcusFenix

Hi lads i'm working on a project to do with teat disinfection for cows post milking and need a bit of help tracking down some info.

I need a ball park figure for how many people go to hospital from cow kicks a year|?
Im not being lazy I have looked elsewhere but theres nothing out there!

Any links or help/info would be greatly appreciated!

whelan1

i had to go this year as a cow tore the ligaments in my finger with a kick:o didnt help that i had a pair of scissors in my hand at the time... have gotten many kick but this was the worst

djmc

I got a kick this year lucky it was in the stomach
I think it nearly hit my back bone she left a hoof print on my tummy and was sore for a few days if the kick hit any place else there would be bones broken for sure.
I dont really blame the cow as she was not expecting me putting on the clusters behind her and got starteled and left a kick fly
after that I make sure to let them know im coming by talking or tipping them on the back leg first
I think the most dangerous time is when you have a farmer day dreaming and nervous cow day dreaming and the cow gets starteled
At least with heifers in spring time you would be on your guard

MarcusFenix

Jaysus, sounds bad, both of them!
My project is to design a robot arm to auto disinfect the teats after milking maybe before aswell.
It would probably be on a rotary parlour. Any thoughts seeing as I have ye?
Did ye have to go to hospital from the kicks? What would you compare the force to? A punch? A kickboxers kick? a rugby tackle? a belt of a car? a lorry? :P
I need to make a case for trying to eliminate any unnecessary poking in around legs, and need to find out how much force the arm will need to be able to "take".
Cheers.

djmc

Didnt need to go to hospital
I did a bit of kick boxing when I was younger and would put the kick at least as powerful as that enough force to lift me off my feet and knock me back a few feet but a bone hoof is harder than a foot.
Most kicks are not that hard she just caught me right.

whelan1

i also got a belt of a flying kickbar just above my eye got 3 stitches for my troubles at 6am on a sunday morning:rolleyes:

snowman707

what has getting kicked from a cow to do with a project on teat disinfection post milking, ?

neither of the replies seem appropriate

whelan1

an awful lot of people dont teat spray cows properly just point the gun in the general direction of the teats... how is your system going to differ as every cow is different

pajero12

snowman707 wrote: »

what has getting kicked from a cow to do with a project on teat disinfection post milking, ?

neither of the replies seem appropriate

Obviously the robot is to automatically disinfect the teats so there is no chance of getting kicked while doing it!!

And I got such a kick it dislocated both my knee and ankle(Dont ask me how i managed that. )

MarcusFenix

snowman707 wrote: »

what has getting kicked from a cow to do with a project on teat disinfection post milking, ?

neither of the replies seem appropriate

Well im a mechanical engineer, not a farmer so I need to get some feedback on the idea, and if you want to PROPERLY disinfect the teats as stated by whelan1 you need to get in pretty close to give it proper attention, which puts you at risk of getting kicked, I need to point out exactly why getting kicked is bad! It's obviously bad but these things need to be quantified.

an awful lot of people dont teat spray cows properly just point the gun in the general direction of the teats... how is your system going to differ as every cow is different

Well ive seen the automatic ones that just shoot a spray up in the general region of the udder as they pass, they are not what im doing. The way it will work is by using a very fancy 3-d camera which can recognize objects(teats) in 3-d space, this will give my "arm" precise co-ordinates where to go, the camera will update the position 100's of times per second so the arm can follow any movement of the cow within the stall. This is obviously high tech and expensive stuff so what im aiming it at is the rotary type parlours.

Obviously the robot is to automatically disinfect the teats so there is no chance of getting kicked while doing it!!

Ya :P

snowman707

MarcusFenix wrote: »

Well im a mechanical engineer, not a farmer so I need to get some feedback on the idea, and if you want to PROPERLY disinfect the teats as stated by whelan1 you need to get in pretty close to give it proper attention, which puts you at risk of getting kicked, I need to point out exactly why getting kicked is bad! It's obviously bad but these things need to be quantified.

:P

I read some of your other posts and as you say it's quite clear that you are not a farmer,

this forum seems to be getting more and more posts on different aspects of farming issues from posters like yourself


if you had been more specific in your original post as for the purpose of your survey you might have got a better response ,

maybe it is my personal set up but we never get kicked when post milking dipping

anyhow good luck with your project and robot

whelan1

would back snowman on that i would very rarely get kicked when teat spraying a cow... i personally dont think there is a market for this product... maybe in a robotic system

MarcusFenix

Thanks.
Im not conducting a survey though. I was, and still am looking for documented information on medical cases of people receiving kicks from a cow. Ive searched online databases and so on but there doesn't seem to be any info available to someone like me. The reason I posted here was in the hope that someone here might know where to find the that info or even have it!
The main concern isn't avoiding kicks it's to help control mastitis as recommended by Teagasc and increase the efficiency of the milking process. As I said the system would only be implemented in large parlours which would mean greater than 200 cows milked per hour. The decreased risk of getting a kick is a minor advantage to the arm, it's not the motivation.

whelan1

the only real kicks i get in the parlour is from an animal that is nervous or doesnt know i am coming , also the way par;ours are set up now it is quite difficult to get a bad kick

MarcusFenix

What kind of parlour are you using?

blue5000

Hi Marcusfenix,

I don't milk anymore, never went to hospital for cow kicks, but would suggest a fairly flexible arm for the robot you're thinking of. Something as stiff as a 3/4 inch hydradare pipe, so that it can move if a cow hits it but will bounce back into position. It will have to be cow friendly too, imagine how you'd feel having something moving between your legs, then spraying iodine on your (tits) nether regions......

MarcusFenix

Hey blue5000,
I have that in mind, what your describing sounds to me like compliance, which is pretty tricky with this kind of thing but actually one of my goals, to be able to "take" any kick without hurting the cow or breaking the arm! That whole thing of not upsetting the cow makes sense alright. Will be something ill have to look at, maybe a touch to the back leg or something to let it know something is there?

John_F

a new zealand company called waikato sell units that are under the cow all the time (on the floor of the rotary) and spray up when the cow is milked, its called smart spray.

there is also a stand alone product called WETiT that is at the end of the platform and sprays cows before exit

i definatly came across a robotic arm to spray cows in a rotary based on a car robotic arm, like this picture from boumatic but in a video that i cant find

dar31

never in my life been kicked while teat spraying. putting the cluster on is the only time there is a risk. even if you get kicked, it will only cause injury if you have your hand some where stupid in the first place.

out of curiosity how are you planning to get the robotic teat sprayer to work on a rotary parlour, how and where will it be mounted.
if it is on the platform, you will need one per stall.
you cant mount it off the platform as it is constantly moving, to fast to get each cow. it could run into such a cost as it would be cheaper to employ some one as a specialist teat sprayer

John_F

ah ha! here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIFWQ3PfaTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZonUffkvu8s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Nm9-5B9JA&feature=related

last one more fancy

with regard to how many people injured from teat spraying, very few and i very much doubt there would be a data base of them, unless you try the Health and Safety Authority?? But i doubt it would be that specific

ps if anyone knows how to show up the videos in posts can you please tell me

pajero12

John_F wrote: »

ah ha! here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIFWQ3PfaTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZonUffkvu8s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Nm9-5B9JA&feature=related

last one more fancy

with regard to how many people injured from teat spraying, very few and i very much doubt there would be a data base of them, unless you try the Health and Safety Authority?? But i doubt it would be that specific

ps if anyone knows how to show up the videos in posts can you please tell me

Click the little youtube icon on the reply box and paste in the code in the link e.g v=UIF...

dar31

thanks john f, was thinking of the slow looking yokes on a robot milking, trying to find the teats.
the heads a bit sluggish today, may milk the cows on auto pilot this evening.

John_F

ok just going to try this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Nm9-5B9JA

yey it worked, just put in the letters and numbers afer the "=" sign in the share tab on youtube

MarcusFenix

John_F wrote: »

ah ha! here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIFWQ3PfaTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZonUffkvu8s&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_Nm9-5B9JA&feature=related

last one more fancy

with regard to how many people injured from teat spraying, very few and i very much doubt there would be a data base of them, unless you try the Health and Safety Authority?? But i doubt it would be that specific

ps if anyone knows how to show up the videos in posts can you please tell me

The last one is very close to the direction im heading in, with e few differences of course;) that yolk is the complete top of the line whereas im trying to make something which would be less complex and would ratchet along with the rotary parlour over maybe the arc of 2-3 stalls. giving a time frame of around 6 seconds per cow like that one.

Its early stages yet and im sure alot will change before it's finished.

I wouldn't expect to find numbers for different kicks specifically but a general figure and calculate it from there.
Thanks for those vids

John_F

MarcusFenix wrote: »

The last one is very close to the direction im heading in, with e few differences of course;) that yolk is the complete top of the line whereas im trying to make something which would be less complex and would ratchet along with the rotary parlour over maybe the arc of 2-3 stalls. giving a time frame of around 6 seconds per cow like that one.

Its early stages yet and im sure alot will change before it's finished.

I wouldn't expect to find numbers for different kicks specifically but a general figure and calculate it from there.
Thanks for those vids

i suppose you could just highlight farm safety using the figures here http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Statistics/Non-Fatal_Injury/ (up to 2008) or search the irish farmers journal website, they had a piece on farm safety at the start of the year