Te Awamutu farmer Carl Watkins was doing some improvements to his herringbone cow shed last season, which included installing an in-shed feed system.
“Once the feed system was installed, we found the cows were slipping a lot more as they were motivated to get the feed and the molasses”. EasyMat UltraGrip is what’s commonly used in the milking bails as it provides the best grip while still being easy to clean. “It’s 100% ticked all the boxes, especially with grip.
The cows don’t get pushed over, and if a cow does happen to fall over, she is able to get straight back up and have absolutely no grazes on her. The cow behaviour has improved, as they are a lot more confident and comfortable and that has made them more relaxed. The cows used to push with their feet a lot on the concrete causing white line and it got to the point with all the pushing that someone could have got hurt”.
With the main pushing areas now, rubber matted the cows are pushing off the rubber which is a lot more forgiving and the “flow on effect has been at least a 70% reduction in foot troubles from last spring.
The main priority was to look after the cows, but while we were doing rubber mats, we decided to try some Anti-Fatigue mats for the pit. The pit now has much better comfort and it’s a lot less stress on our joints”.
Carl Watkins