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Just a note to let you know how we have enjoyed reading Practial Farm Ideas. It's one of the best farm magazines we have had for a long time and will pass it around for our friends to read - it's so interesting that you just can't put it down. Keep up the good work!
S.J.Perry, Exeter
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Practical technology transfer
Preventing teat damage from barbed wire cuts
The phone rings and a Somerset farmer is on the line, wanting to follow up a story which was published in 2007. Last week he had a cow cut her teat badly on a barbed wire fence. She's a second calver, by a top Cogent bull, and would be hard to replace, and must have been pushed backwards into the wire when the cattle were hanging around, excited at being let out to graze.
The teat needed stitching. The machine won't go on, so the quarter has to be stripped out by hand, taking 5 minutes which he doesn't have in the 20:20 parlour. So far she's escaped getting mastitis in that quarter, but there's a good chance she'll get an infection. It's an incident that's all downhill, and at this time is something which can be avoided.
The farmer remembered reading an article in Practical Farm Ideas Spring 2007, Vol 16 issue 1 which described how the contributor constructed plain wire fencing using multi strands of high tensile wire. Reading the article provided a lot of detail - but how much better it would be to talk directly to the farmer, or even pay a visit and see for himself how the job was done.
Being a fully paid up subscriber, Somerset man is enheadlined to get this kind of help, even if it involves some research and a call back. He's going to replace the barbed with high tensile, reduce the chance of another accident to one of his best cows, and get on top of the problem.
He got inspired by a Practical Farm Ideas feature. A subscription that costs him just £14.85 a year, which is no more than a couple of mastitis tubes, that's nothing in relation to the value of the injured cow.
Here is the article entry in the Index:
High tensile wire fencing - home built tools for erecting 16 1 16
This is the issue in which he found the High tensile fencing article:
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