Relief milking insurance

[Princess Pooper]

I have a guy drive my tractor sometimes, self employed but he’s on my farm insurance policy. I don’t expect him to have his own. Surely it’s no different with a herd of cows?
Do shearers need insurance? Lambing/calving students?
The farm I milk on currently said that there they have their own insurance, but I would have to pay the £200 excess if there ever was an AB failure. Fair enough - as long as it’s my fault of course! If the herdsman has forgotten to put red tape on a cow that’s a different matter!

Vehicle insurance can be specifically extended to cover any driver, or named drivers, or age restricted drivers, but he should still have his own insurance as a self employed worker - not for the vehicle. If self employed can be added to the farm policy for other things fine, but how often is this checked by those involved?

Shearers - yes! Cut the knackers off a prize winning pedigree tup ??

Anyone running their own business should have public liability insurance and / or professional indemnity insurance depending on the nature of their business. It's not a legal requirement, but it means they are covered rather than being personally liable if someone claims against them for a loss caused by their negligence. I still do some self employed farm consultancy work, revenue about £4k. The insurance costs me £360. If I cock up a BPS claim or give bad advice that leads to a financial loss, my clients are covered by that insurance. There is also an element of some other cover in that - eg personal accident/illness if something serious happened and my ability to work was affected (which is worth a lot).

Lambing/calving students are different, they are deemed employees (as is unpaid family labour) so covered by the farm insurance.

My Mum's gardener has insurance and I wouldn't employ one that didn't. If they knock the glass out on the greenhouse or use roundup instead of lawn feed, they are covered.

It's not just antibiotics in a milking scenario - although for some milk buyers the fall out from that can be fairly horrendous. Seen the discussion about putting the wrong chemical in the teat dip and what that can do to cows?

Obviously many errors are caused not by the relief milker - the failure to tape an AB cow as you have stated, one example, but as red tapes can fall off they should have more than one system in place, even if just a list of current 'not in tank' cows. I wouldn't relief milk somewhere where they only rely on tail tapes, it's too risky.

 

[had e nuff]

Anyone who doesn't know the difference between chemicals and teat dip shouldn't be anywhere near a cow in my opinion.

 

[Scholsey]

Anyone who doesn't know the difference between chemicals and teat dip shouldn't be anywhere near a cow in my opinion.

Still think teat dips/sprays/wash chems should be universal colour coded, red acid blue alk green cow udder products, need to have a degree in chemistry to work out what some of the dairy chems are now just from looking at the labels.

 

[Highland Mule]

Interesting to see that the pipes going in are the same colour. Would it not be sensible to have a blue pipe for the blue barrel, red for the red etc.? I don’t know how serious it would be if they got swapped, but it’s not very obvious which pipe is which.

 

[Highland Mule]

If you take a red barrel off you put a red barrel on. Not difficult is it?
Cable ties indicate which robot the pipes goto.

My father was colour-blind so always read the labels........well nearly always as often ended up with baked beans and sausages as he only read what he needed to

In theory, but looks a bit tricky getting the blue one out without moving one of the others to make space. Or if two go dry at the same point when the apprentice is in helping. For the sake of some coloured pipe, I don’t know by you wouldn’t label them up to avoid mistakes.

That said, how serious is it if they get swapped?

 

[Highland Mule]

All I know is that any proper chemical industry would have the pipes labelled, to reduce the risk.

I wouldn’t bother with insurance as a relief working there either, as it would be an easy court case to show the farmer hadn’t done all that was reasonable to avoid human error - so it was their fault and not mine.

 

[Highland Mule]

The beauty of robots is you don't have to employ reliefs who need labels everywhere.

But If you were relief here and you touched those barrels then you would be liable as not within job requirements.

Presume there’s a big sign just out of shot that says that, and it’s covered in the pre-job brief.

What are the chemicals and what are they used for?

And really, why wouldn’t you label the pipes?

 

[Highland Mule]

We don't employ relief.

If you don't know what something is or what it's used for best not to touch it.

Should I also put up a sign telling a relief not to trim a cows foot or to ai a cow or to do a cesarean if not trained to do so?

Now you’re being silly. All I know is that any serious and proper chemical plant labels all pipes - colour and name - and especially those with detachable ends and undesirable mixing potential.

Again, why wouldn’t you?

 

[tepapa]

For the sake of some coloured tape around the pipes I'm afraid id have to put some on just to satisfy my logical brain that that would be a good idea should you ever need to know which was which, and it would only cost a penny or two to do.

 

[Highland Mule]

That's red tractor logic!

Don’t conflate what you’re doing with anything like Red Tractor - but perhaps think of it as a good example of why they have to spoon feed you all that they do, if you’re not clever enough to follow the law without. And your attitude today in this thread is nothing more than stubborn stupidity. You have a legal requirement to do all that’s reasonable to reduce risks, so you should just wind in your neck and write “you know what, that’s not a bad idea. Next time I’m in the parlour I’ll do it.”

Happy to quote the specific laws if you want - or I’m sure @Eden.Agri.AD could do too - just PM me if you’re interested.

 

[O'Reilly]

Don’t conflate what you’re doing with anything like Red Tractor - but perhaps think of it as a good example of why they have to spoon feed you all that they do, if you’re not clever enough to follow the law without. And your attitude today in this thread is nothing more than stubborn stupidity. You have a legal requirement to do all that’s reasonable to reduce risks, so you should just wind in your neck and write “you know what, that’s not a bad idea. Next time I’m in the parlour I’ll do it.”

Happy to quote the specific laws if you want - or I’m sure @Eden.Agri.AD could do too - just PM me if you’re interested.

Actually, that's his attitude most days.

 

[Highland Mule]

Given I actually have drums that are actually colour coded and other users have drums that are all the same colours how does that work.

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Deosan is a really bad offender.
Red tape goes into blue barrel....and blue tape goes in the blue barrel And teat dip goes in the blue barrel.

I think you misunderstand. The legal position is that should have done as well as you reasonably could, on H&S matters - not that you could have been worse.

 

[Highland Mule]

We have thanks for all your help.

That was quick. Well done for taking advice on board. It may be worth checking the labels and safety sheets as I suspect the acid and alkali should have separate bunds too.

How many people do you employ (including yourselves)? It’s the sort of thing that should be picked up by a professional h&S check, but perhaps you are below the legal threshold for written policies etc.

 

[buffalo_soldier]

Interesting back and forth there.
I'll have to go out and check but I'm pretty sure the pipes on my auto wash and bulk tank are colour coded.

Insurance, I've had what you would call proper full time relief milkers whom are insured and other who you would more call occasional help who are not.

 

[Highland Mule]

Yep will order the blocks tomorrow along with the crash barriers to prevent being struck by a vehicle.
Get some stripey paint to make it stand out so it don't get damaged.

Have to buy a crane to lift the drums in and out of the bund, need to be lorer tested of course and hi vi's with crash helmet ⛑

Or I could just give up milking cows, might be easier.

And that in a nutshell is why farming gets a bad name for safety - because we have business owners with a chip that won’t take sensible safety advice given for the best of reasons.

I really hope you don’t have an accident, because what you’ve written in these last few pages would destroy any defence you might have.

 

[buffalo_soldier]

Curiosity got the better of me so I went and checked .

Colour coded and labeled to boot

 

[Highland Mule]

Curiosity got the better of me so I went and checked .

Colour coded and labeled to boot

As I’ve asked a few times - why wouldn’t you?

 

[buffalo_soldier]

As I’ve asked a few times - why wouldn’t you?

I dunno, it's only ever me who would handle chems here.
Must tick some box somewhere I guess.

 

[Highland Mule]

I dunno, it's only ever me who would handle chems here.
Must tick some box somewhere I guess.

Only you so far - but when you break a leg? Just as easy to do things right as wrong, usually.

 

[buffalo_soldier]

Only you so far - but when you break a leg? Just as easy to do things right as wrong, usually.

Now I need to look at my contingency plan .