Basically Safety: Episode 3 - Working with Livestock

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What's this podcast episode about?

Key takeaways:

If the animal is aggressive, consider if culling is the best option

Perform a Risk Assessment before placing your herd in a publicly accessible field

Assess every situation and see if there's a safer way to do it.

Never be complacent around livestock.

Over recent years, there's been a steady increase in the number of injuries and fatalities in and around farms. It doesn't only include those who work directly with the livestock, but also members of the public.

Working with livestock is one of the highest causes of injuries and fatalities in agriculture. Gulliver and Hannah thought it was worth a deeper dive into why these incidents occur.

Hannah shares her background with cattle, from handling and showing dairy cows when growing up. From her experience, she finds there is quite a difference between beef cows versus dairy cows. There tends to be a difference in tolerance depending on their handling

When she was younger she had a bull on the farm that was named "crazy eyes". She felt it would take one look at you and peer into your soul. There was something unhinged about him!

If an animal is habitually aggressive and poses a risk, you need to consider culling to prevent the behaviour from going down the bloodline.

Livestock in the field

Gulliver raises a point that all livestock are unpredictable to a degree. You can have a friendly cow you've raised and handled, but the moment they have a calf or feel vulnerable, their behaviour can change instantly.

This is seen in the press too often where cows are being moved around fields with calfs at foot. Unfortunately, they feel threatened by the public in the field and end up "protecting" themselves by attacking them.

Hannah's solution to farmers and land owners with cattle in a field is to do a risk assessment. Step one is, can you eliminate the risk? Can you place cattle in another field? It's the best option but also understandable that it's not always the case. Other fields may be too wet, unsuitable for grazing or you don't have anywhere else.

Gulliver understands it's super challenging to protect public right of way but also your own cattle. Suppose there's a footpath going into your field. In that case, Gulliver has known farmers to set up a temporary diversion and signs to ensure walkers avoid entering the field.

This is implementing avoidance which is also your first stage of your risk assessment as you're eliminating the risk.

If it's not an option to divert the footpath off your land, Hannah suggests running a corridor of fence posts and wire down the path. Segregating the animals from humans. There are heaps of options to consider depending on your budget.

She also suggests that you keep a written record of everything you've done so that if an incident does occur, you have paperwork to fall back onto. These can be a risk assessment, a survey and thoughts about the temperament of your cattle before putting them into a field with public access.

Gulliver recalls seeing a prosecution in the press where a farm owner was prosecuted because a family was exercising their right to use the path through the field. Unfortunately, while the family was walking, the farmer was moving his herd which coincided with the path. The farm workers weren't at the head of the herd so when the cows saw the walkers they felt threatened and attacked and caused a fatalilty. The outcome was a prosecution, suspended prison sentence and a fine for failing to demonstrate that they had considered this risk.

It's never anyone's intention for it to become a situation like this. What's second nature in terms of decisions, how to act around cattle and dogs on a lead close to agriculture. It isn't for everyone else.

You need to consider the public and never assume they know your version of 'common sense'. Putting the cattle in another field will always be the best option.

Go back to the basics of monitoring your cattle. Watch for the signs that they may be feeling protective over calves or are aggressive and need culling.

Handling Livestock

If you're handling livestock in the yard or field by yourself it's important to let others know where you are. If you head to the field to check on calves ensure you have a suitable vehicle for 'refuge' if the absolute worst happens.

Just because you've done it for '20 years' and not had a problem doesn't mean it's not going to happen. Livestock change.

It's easy to become complacent about the risks of handling cattle as you do it every day. Complacency is the enemy of Health and Safety and it's seen within every industry. People do a behaviour and they don't see it as a risky behaviour as it turned out fine.

The ideal goal is to stop, pause and breathe and get an objectivity of what you're doing and what you need to be careful of.

When Gulliver first started as a Health and Safety consultant he had a case where a cow was in a crush and its head wasn't restrained. While he was doing his job he leaned over the cows head, it raised its head and collided with the worker in the temple, ending in a fatality.

The cow didn't attack but it showed how unpredictable and heavy these animals are.

Hannah also shared a similar experience she recently heard where a friendly bull was getting ready for a show. In the washing bay the blow drier dropped to the ground and started wiggling on the floor. Naturally, the bull freaked out and knocked his handler against the side of the bay and was unable to turn it off.

The key takeaway Hannah took away was to try and assess every situation and see if there's a safer way to do it.

Doesn't matter if you've done it 100 times, don't do anything unless its necessary. Everything can change in a spilt second.

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