Stop heifers kicking in parlour

briank

Well-Known Member
Afternoon all. Now that it is the time of year again when heifers are being milked for the first time how do lads stop them kicking off the cluster? Tieing their leg with a rope for years here but surely there is a better way. I think the rope makes them worse. Kick bar doesn't always stay on. Milking them through the legs in 2ft3 parlour
 
Afternoon all. Now that it is the time of year again when heifers are being milked for the first time how do lads stop them kicking off the cluster? Tieing their leg with a rope for years here but surely there is a better way. I think the rope makes them worse. Kick bar doesn't always stay on. Milking them through the legs in 2ft3 parlour
Heavy duty battery clamps as high up the tail as possible if one doesn't work try two. On the real bad ones two clamps and someone holding the heifers tail up.
 
Heavy duty battery clamps as high up the tail as possible if one doesn't work try two. On the real bad ones two clamps and someone holding the heifers tail up.
Any pictures of the clamp you use? Or a link to a similar one?
 
Heavy duty battery clamps as high up the tail as possible if one doesn't work try two. On the real bad ones two clamps and someone holding the heifers tail up.
Do you lift the tail before putting on the clamp or leave the tail hanging down as normal?
 
Any pictures of the clamp you use? Or a link to a similar one?
I'm sure they'll have them in your local co op just ask for battery clamps for jump leads. Think there might even be clamps designed for cows tails now but I find the battery clamps work fine
 

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A bit less chat about clamps on tails people. I know that it's a black mark with Board Bia and not everyone understands their function.
 
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Leave the tail hanging as normal just put the clamp as high up the tail as possible
That put me off kick bars. Forgot it one day and nearly hobbled the poor heifers. Never found d them any good anyway. Only got the blood pressure up putting them on. Mine and the heifer's
 
A bit less chat about clamps on tails people. I know that it a black mark with Board Bia and not everyone understands their function.
Sure bord bia wont mind if we cant get the black marks to wash off.some heifers can be right stubborn.often found the younger smaller heifers were the most crankiest and of certain bulls
 
A bit less chat about clamps on tails people. I know that it a black mark with Board Bia and not everyone understands their function.
I don't think this will be the cause of any eureka moments for bord bia officials. I can't think of a single parlour I've ever been in that didn't feature a clamp somewhere.
 
I use my clamp to hang my battery clippers from so it sits in the oil bucket the right dept and there are some animals you have to tie up a leg or face a broken arm. Health and safety for the farmer always first.
 
If they are seriously bad best thing is to tie them. Over use of the clamp does permanently damage the tail, kick bad just sets them off, holding the tail up over her back is grand but you need 2 people, you can perform the same function as the clamp with your hand if she is just figgidty after you put the machine on just squeeze high up on the tail when she starts to move.
If she is truly wicked just tie her, anything else I find holding the tail and squeezing with your hand is best, kickbars I find to be both ineffective and they often end up requiring them to milk when they do settle down.
 
Drop of meal works and treat too. We always have them trained to the parlour before they calf. We would spray teat spray on them and rub off them so they get used to it. We find the clamp works well if kicking to get on the clusters but take it off once on. If they kick off the unit on the clamp goes and off again. I find the longer it's on the more fidgety they are. On a hole doh they don't give us to much bother after the first milking
 
An idea springing to mind here that could be less stress to man and beast.

Would slotting in a U shaped contraption of some kind, between her legs and udder, down underneath the unit. To stop her actually being able to hook the unit work?
Let her get used to it being there?
 
What we do here is run the heifers through the miking parlour a few days a week for a few weeks before they calve. They are fed ration while the parlour is running to get them used to the environment and the sound. We are also spraying their udders afterwards to get them used to that.

By the time they calve and it comes to the first milking most of them are well behaved. Just remember to be quiet and have plenty of patience with them. Any one that kicks just lift her tail up at the base to stop her kicking and hold the cluster with the other hand until she is finished. Youll always have the odd one that gets very excited but this in general seems to work well for us.
 
I don’t feed in the parlour and find heifers very quiet,only thing we have to get them used to is letting milk down.

Go back 30 years my Dad and Uncle used to make a big thing about calving the heifers in every year,they’d have an abundance of staff on both their farms back then,we just don’t stress about it and calve in 3 times the amount they did.
 
Find a kick bar does the trick here most times. Also noticed its about finding the correct position for the new heifer(1st 2nd 3rd etc, left or right side). also noticed it have something be the pulsator pipe on their leg doing it too - in the main, would have too many bad ones, depends on who you ask milking i guess to and what they are like in a palour - sometimes its not the heifer at all, bit the man- if they really are hopping us out of it and no sign of breaking, she will more than likely get culled out
 
we find milking them once a day at the start is a great way to reduce stress on them, now in saying this, we do the same as others have mentioned and run them through the parlour a few times before calving, so this is probably the main reason they dont get too stressed during their first milking. The fact myself and my father are farming here together is a huge help also, one of us can hold the tail, the other can milk, Dad always says an ounce of calmness is better than a tonne of fury😂
 
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