Occupational Health and Safety Aspects of Animal Handling in Dairy Production

Abstract

Livestock handling in dairy production is associated with a number of health and safety issues. A large number of fatal and nonfatal injuries still occur when handling livestock. The many animal handling tasks on a dairy farm include moving cattle between different locations, vaccination, administration of medication, hoof care, artificial insemination, ear tagging, milking, and loading onto trucks. There are particular problems with bulls, which continue to cause considerable numbers of injuries and fatalities in dairy production. In order to reduce the number of injuries during animal handling on dairy farms, it is important to understand the key factors in human-animal interactions. These include handler attitudes and behavior, animal behavior, and fear in cows. Care when in close proximity to the animal is the key for safe handling, including knowledge of the flight zone, and use of the right types of tools and suitable restraint equipment. Thus, in order to create safe working conditions during livestock handling, it is important to provide handlers with adequate training and to establish sound safety management procedures on the farm.

Evaluating The Swedish Approach to Motivating Improved Work Safety Conditions on Farms: Insights from Fear Appeals and the Extended Parallel Processing Model

“…Despite substantial combined efforts to improve farm safety in Sweden, [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] there is mounting evidence that the overall situation has not improved.- 12 The numbers of deaths and injuries have remained stable since 2007 when controlling for the number of farmers and reporting methods. 12,13 Similar results have been reported in other countries, [14][15][16] raising questions about whether safety interventions, in particular those based on educating and informing, are effective.…”

Impact of good practices of handling training on beef cattle welfare and stockpeople attitudes and behaviors

“…It has been suggested that people who understand and apply the knowledge acquired in a training course about animal handling (including information about animal behavior) exhibit better handling, resulting in better animal behavior and lower stockpeople stress (Lindahl et al, 2013). When people do not know how best to handle animals, they could become more stressed, and consequently, their behavior could get worse (M.C.…”

“…1016/j.livsci.2018.06.019which may increase their stress during handling and underlie their difficulties on the job. Additionally, a heavy workload and the risk of accidents have been identified as stress-inducing job characteristics of stockpeople on cattle farms Lindahl et al, 2013;Menger et al, 2016). Job stress is defined as "the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker" (NIOSH, 1999), and farming is thought to be among the jobs with the highest levels of job stress.…”

The Effects of Stress on Acute Phase Proteins of Cattle

“…Sığırlar üzerinde yapılan bazı çalışmalar hem hayvan refahının, hem de sürü sağlığının sağlanmasında önemli roller üstlenmiştir (28). Genetik seçilim ve çevresel baskı çiftlik hayvanlarında konfor eksikliğinden ölüme varabilen istenmeyen sonuçlara predispoze kılmaktadır.…”