Oil-Filled Squirt Gun Soothes Chapped Teats

Oil-Filled Squirt Gun Soothes Chapped Teats LIVESTOCK Handling 27-2-18 An Alberta couple uses a big squirt gun to treat chapped teats in their cow herd. Rod and Bernadette Nikkel of Pickardville, Alberta, fill the gun with mineral oil and spray chapped udders from a distance. "We winter calve (in February), and have found that occasionally a cow will develop chapped teats because of nursing calves in cold, windy conditions," Rod says. "If their teats are sore, they will discourage the calf from sucking by kicking them off, and we want the calves to have the best start they can in life. So chapped teats must be treated." Catching and restraining these cows would put unnecessary stress on them and their calves, not to mention the extra labor required by the operator. Nikkel says the squirt gun works excellent because he can squirt the cow's udder from as far away as 10 ft. Usually, he waits until the cows are eating at the silage bunks to spray them from behind, since they are distracted and this gives him the opportunity to be more thorough. He says only one treatment is usually necessary. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Rod and Bernadette Nikkel, R.R.1, Pickardville, Alberta, Canada TOG 1W0 (ph 780 674-6805).

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