Farm Safety Tips for Animal Handling

Welcome to the Talking Total Farmer Health podcast from AgriSafe Network. At AgriSafe, we work to protect the people that feed the world by supporting the health and safety professionals, ensuring access to preventative services for farm families and the agriculture community.

So today we’re going to talk to Doctor Aaron Yoder from the University of Nebraska Medical Center's College of Public Health! We took a deep dive look into his diverse research and outreach work of keeping farmers, farmworkers, and farm families, healthy and safe on the farm. So to make sure that you don’t miss out on any helpful information, we broke it into two episodes. In this first part, we’re going to discuss some health and safety tips when working with farm animals. Alright Aaron, thanks for joining us on the Talking Total Farmer Health Podcast!

Thanks for having me today. I appreciate the opportunity.

Yeah, it's always great to to pick your brain about the different exposures as well as the different work that farmers and ranchers do. So let's talk about you. What brought you to do the work that you do here at the center? Yeah.

So it started off as an undergraduate student. My mechanical abilities to be able to fix stuff. Got me involved with safety demonstrations at Penn State. Building safety demonstrations, maintaining safety demonstrations for Penn State extension, that that sort of got me started and hooked. And then I started working, doing injury surveillance. And then in graduate school, a little more injury surveillance. And then for my PhD at Purdue, it was working with the AgrAbility project and that got me looking a little bit more at the ergonomic issues with agriculture and with the workforce and how we could do a better job of fitting the tools and the work to the people that were doing it.

Yeah, so, so important and something as a producer I don't think about, right. I grabbed that tool for whatever job needs to be done and I just go with it. But we know, of course, everybody's made a little bit differently. Males and females, big differences in our- in our structure of our body and our muscle, how the muscles all interact. So backing up just a little bit, what- what piqued your interest to even step into this work as an undergrad?

It really was just the job opportunity. I was working for another professor at Penn State at the time, cleaning up their engine shop and working on those things, setting up for lab experiments and tearing things down and doing that. And then their safety person there, Dr. Dennis Murphy, needed help with his safety demonstrations and that sort of got me started and then started to get my interest and starting to see that human interaction side. I was always an ag machinery, a tractor person, not thinking about the human side of of agriculture. And the more I worked with him and saw how people were getting injured, at that point it was more the major injuries and fatalities, like tractor rollovers and other things like that. But then throughout my graduate school, starting to see some of those other areas that needed- needed some more attention than they were getting.

So that drive came from within. You have an engineering mind, right? You're always like that new inventor trying to come up with how to do the work smarter and not so much harder. But how about the human component of it? What was that? What was that connection for you?

Well, a lot of it was when I was doing the injury surveillance, when I would start seeing people that were being injured that I could relate to, either as myself, as my grandparents. And then as I started having children and seeing youth injured on the farm, those things started to build that passion, I guess you'd say, for, for saving other people, similar to the people that are in my family or people that I've had interactions with, and just seeing the need to continue to protect those people.

Right, right. And being able to to provide that knowledge to them that they don't have time to even think about because they're just so busy doing the work.

So I know that you do a lot with livestock handling and and for our producers out there it's just not as simple as just climbing in a pen to work with the cattle, with the hogs, whatever it is, the type of critter that they're dealing with. So let's talk a little bit more about your work with livestock handling. What is your background there and what's what's on the horizon, like, what are you doing right now?

So I had a lot of unsafe experiences as a child around livestock. My uncle and grandfather were coal miners in Pennsylvania, but they had a small farm where we had about a dozen or so beef cattle at any point in time. So we baled the small square bales, which is a whole other ergonomic issue. But then working around the cattle, my grandfather always had a pulling team of ponies or of other horses, that type of thing. So we would go out in the, in the pastures and hop on them bareback, which they weren't saddle broken, they were harness broken. So that was always an interesting thing to do as kids. So that taught me a lot of things of what not to do so.

But just growing up around the animals, you realize that relationship you get with them that I always thought and I hear a lot of people say about how unpredictable animals are. A lot of the animal behavior specialists that I work with don't like that. Saying that, if you understand the animals, they're pretty predictable. It's just that we don't understand them most of the time, or we're asking them to do things that's out of their comfort zone. So by understanding the animals a little bit more – so, growing up with them, being around them and figuring out how we can handle them, and then we can take that to the next phase where we look at what equipment we have to handle them with - the squeeze chutes and other types of equipment we have and how that plays a role in how we interact with them.

That is cool. Just that background. You think about the animal's behavior and being able to study that behavior, right? And we know each seedstock or whatever breed line that these producers are putting into their herds that also plays into that behavior.

Yeah, it really does. So knowing the limitations of the animals, knowing what they typically are going to do. Again, they're just like us. They get in bad moods, there's teenagers, there's the early ones, there's mothers that are protective of their children. So it's real similar to humans. So knowing what stage they're in and where we where they're at, maybe weather - weather patterns, all kinds of things…The things that make us grumpy make the animals grumpy, too.

Amen. Right. They know when the seasons are changing and what they have to do to survive. A lot of it is survivability.

Yes, yes. So, you know, when we talk about handling them, we think about what type of animal they are. They're typically prey. So, how would a predator treat prey? So sneaking up on them, showing up in places that they didn't expect it, maybe ambushing them, stuff like that. So any of those type of behaviors we do, lead them to their natural instincts of of flight when something's coming to attack them, or defending themselves if they can't fight. So thinking about, you know, we don't want to act like a predator when we're around them, we want to act like one of them. So being visible, you know, making slow movements, not asking them to go somewhere that's uncomfortable for them. So the same way we should act with other humans, too, right?

True story. So it brought me back to my, and I still do help with the cattle a little bit on our farm, but it makes me think about all of the players when it comes to working with cattle. What are some good tips when you're working within a team, whether it's processing cattle or hogs or, or loading them out into semis, whatever it is? What are some good tips as far as the communication goes between those that are working on the farm?

Yeah. So thinking about your own safety and your coworkers safety should be a priority. So whether that's escape chutes or places you can go, not putting yourself in a position that, that or a coworker in a position that could get you harmed when you do that. So thinking about your own safety and your coworkers safety, if you see somebody doing something that looks unsafe, it probably is unsafe or knowing that it's unsafe. We talk a lot about low stress handling. So that does mean, you know, not doing things too quickly, not agitating him any more than we have to, having those right facilities.

But yeah, being able to communicate so that we're not startling the animals, that we have a good plan before we go into it. Planning has a lot to do with it. We think about sporting activities and other things like that. So we go back to being in the right physical shape, stretching, being prepared to do it. But that also means communicating. When sports teams go out there on the field, they have plays, they have plans, they know what they're going to do. So having that all in place, not just going out there and doing whatever, but having a good plan in place. So that I think that goes along with the communicating previous to doing stuff or preplanning. And then as you're actually doing it, whether it be hand signals, if you're in a loud environment or far away from each other, that you can use in making sure we are all on board with what the same hand, what the hand signals mean as we're doing them.

Right, understanding right? Because some hand signals mean nothing to me, right? And some others are pretty obvious. How about the clothing to wear when they're working with livestock?

Yeah. So just like- I try to relate everything back to athletes, you know, if you think about what an athlete wears when they perform, same thing being dressed for the weather, whether it's warm or cold. We know cowboys are going to wear different footwear than somebody that's on the ground. Being able to get your foot in and out of a stirrup is different than having traction in mud and manure and that sort of thing. Sometimes we have to do both. So having footwear that can withstand both. But then just being warm enough, if we're comfortable, we're going to be less angry as we do things. So the more comfortable we are, the more likely we are to keep the animals comfortable. So dressing in layers, whether it's a cold time of the year or in the sun, protecting ourselves from the sun, in the heat in the summertime. So thinking about what that outdoor weather, again, the same way that an athlete does. And they make way better clothes now for athletes than they did 20 or 30 years ago. Same thing for work clothes.

And I feel like athletes prepare ahead of time. And the same thing that producers can do. Here in the summer in Nebraska, the humidity increases that heat index dramatically. So even looking ahead on those beautiful weather apps out there now to use. So being prepared, knowing what weather is coming and what time of the day maybe is best to work with your livestock. And then what about our own our own needs, our own nutrition and hydration needs?

Right. Right. So definitely hydration is a big thing, drinking enough water and lots of water as we go through that. Sometimes it's an inconvenience to go to the bathroom, so sometimes we might cut back on things or not take certain medications that make us go to the bathroom a lot, which we know blood pressure medications do sometimes. And, you know, making sure that we're taking care of ourselves, even though it might mean a little bit of inconvenience with restroom breaks and that sort of thing. But the heat is a is a really big one. And you can get dehydrated in the winter time. You know, oftentimes we don't drink as much. But if we're out there moving around, we're sweating under those clothing, plus our body making extra heat. If we're a little chilly, it's going to be burning more and using more water and liquid, too. So oftentimes we don't think about dehydration in the winter time, but it can affect us as much as it does in the summertime, just in a slightly different way.

I'm so glad you brought that up, because you're exactly right. We don't think about drinking that water. And you are you're still working your body. You're still exerting a lot of energy when you're moving livestock. What about the tools that farmers use? I think when we're processing cattle, right, there's syringes all over, there's bottles of medication. I'm usually the one recording numbers and recording what animal has been vaccinated with what. Can we talk a little bit more about the safety when it comes to handling the equipment you need?

Yeah, needle sticks can be a pretty big issue and some of the medications we use can be pretty harmful to us because they're in much larger doses than we would take. And sometimes different types of medications that haven't been approved for human use. So making sure that we protect ourselves from those by by using the right tools, whether it be the syringes that we're using or have more safety devices involved, or just the procedure and again, communicating with the others around you so you don't turn around real quickly and stab someone else, those type of things. Or if the animal moves quickly and isn't restrained as much as it should be, that it doesn't bump us into someone else or cause us to to stick ourselves with the needle. So again, a little bit of preplanning before we do those tasks and thinking about the possible scenarios of what could go wrong and how we would handle that. So I think there's, there's lots of opportunities to improve what we're doing and at least evaluate what we're doing and making sure it is the safest way.

Correct. You know, it's it's safety usually is something that farmers and ranchers just don't consider because they're so driven to get this work done and usually in a short amount of time. So simple things, like don't stick an uncapped syringe in a pocket and or even set it up on maybe a fence post, whatever it is, because someone can easily grab that and needle stick, and you don't know what's on that, in that, syringe for medication. That can be- cause, it can cause some major problems as well as some of those medications could cause death for a human.

Yeah. And we're- we oftentimes stick stuff in our mouth to hold it to.

Oh, yeah.

So that's not a, you know, we see people do that with pencils and pens, but take that to the next step and holding a syringe in your mouth or holding other medications in your mouth isn't a good idea. You want to free up your hands. But again, having the right facility layout, having the right storage and where everything is within reach, or bulk, some of the bulk syringes where you don't have to keep an individual syringe for things where you can just put out a certain metered amount of medication at a time. You know, thinking about the, the whole process is always a good idea.

Is there… where could they go to find out more about some of those tips and tricks and tools that are out there?

Yeah, I think extension is a great place, especially the animal specialists or the animal handling specialists that are there, the animal science departments at the universities. And most of the time the pharmaceutical companies, the veterinary pharmaceutical companies, have a lot of good safety materials and things to look at. They're more than willing to share. Trying to get you to buy their product, but the ideas that they share and the safety methods they share are good for all products out there.

So ask the question, asking some questions of your veterinarian.

Yeah.

And it doesn't have to, like, what's the best way to frame a question for that vet?

Yeah. So explaining what you're doing and what you'd like to do or maybe some concerns you have about safety, I'm sure they would have plenty of ideas. So like you mentioned, the veterinarians, the vet that you have, we know they're a trusted resource out there and they're just trying to help everybody do what's right. So making sure that we ask them. So, framing the questions with your concerns, I think, you know, just saying, “hey, is there a safer way I can do this or a better way I could do this? Or how do you suggest doing this type of process?”

What should I be aware of? Right. With this medication, we would ask that of ourselves what are the side effects? What are the potential complications? Same thing when you're dealing with medication for animals.

Well, Aaron, there's a couple of questions I ask all of my guests. And this is just going to throw them out there at you. What's your favorite meal?

Favorite meal? That was one of the things that when I came to Nebraska, we had different foods in Pennsylvania. So, one of the things that I can't get here that I like a lot is called Lebanon Bologna. It's kind of like a summer sausage, but a little bit sweeter in a bigger roll. Sliced up like lunch meat. I can find it here in a few stores that are, you know, from the east. But the sweet version of it I have trouble finding. And then I like pierogies a lot. And pierogies aren't as existent here as they were. We had many more varieties in Pennsylvania, so when anybody asks me what I miss about Pennsylvania, those are the two things that come up the most, I guess, behind family that lives there. But, so those two foods, I would say Lebanon, bologna and pierogies are kind of my… but I'll never pass up a good burger either.

That we do know how to do in Nebraska, I have to say.

Yes, very well.

And in a little bit more of a seriouser note, but what matters to you most in your work, and in this life that you've created here in Nebraska?

I really think it's the connections with people. You know, I really enjoy getting out there across the state. Tractor safety is one example that where I can get to see, you know, the whole way from the panhandle of Nebraska back to the eastern part of the state. I really enjoy working with the youth and seeing what they're doing in agriculture and encouraging that. On seeing the ones that are driving cattle out west or, you know, driving tractors back east here. So, you know, really those personal connections and working with people. When we hear positive stories, people come back, you know, that remember something or remember talking to you or implemented something new. That gets me excited.

Just having that discussion. Like you can see that light bulb click on and they're like, “I get it now and I know where to find the answers,” right? And that's what I feel like. The center does so very well here is is help people find the answers.

Okay folks, that’s it for today. Thank you again for tuning in to another episode. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast to hear more from AgriSafe on the health and safety issues impacting agricultural workers. If you’d like to suggest topics, or have a story you’d like to share, contact us by email at info@agrisafe.org, and title your email “TTFH Podcast.” You can also get our attention by using the hashtag "TTFHpod" on Twitter! To see more from AgriSafe, including webinars and our newsletter, visit www.agrisafe.org.

Remember to tune in for part 2 next month, where we discuss ergonomics, wearable technology, and general health and safety! This episode was created by AgriSafe Network, directed by Laura Siegel, hosted by me, Linda Emanuel, edited by Matt McKenney for ProPodcastingServices.com, with special guest Dr. Aaron Yoder!