Rubber mats prevent slips and injuries
For every breeder, it's the worst way to start the day: to enter the barn and find a cow that has slipped and can't get up. On damp concrete, often polished by scrapers, the ground can become slippery. In the event of overlapping, cows are surprised by the scraper and slip. The time they have to wait on the ground before being rescued, and the severity of their injuries, mean that many never recover.
Cows back on their feet
The use of rubber mats significantly reduces the risk of slipping. The non-slip surface reproduces the suppleness and stability of a meadow. Visit non-slip mats make movement safer. Cows will move around more to eat and drink, which will benefit their milk production. The patterns on the rubber mats make the surface non-slip, improving animal safety. Even on wet surfaces, the risk of falling is reduced, even in the event of jostling.
A recurring problem of slips and falls prompted Christophe Favreau, a breeder in the Deux-Sèvres region of France, to install Magellan mats. «Since then, I've had no more problems with slips and fallen cows,» he says. The same approach was adopted by Gaec des 4 lieux, in Vendée. «Our old carpets were 12 years old and had become smooth. Since we replaced them with Magellan carpets on all the scraped corridors, we've got cows back on their feet. They run on them as if they were in the meadow,» says Damien Soulard, one of the partners. Recently, a cow did a splits but, thanks to the structure and the grooves, she managed to get up again without any damage".
Another advantage of this stability is that, without fear of slipping, cows can better express their natural behaviours, such as heat. With more frequent overlapping, it will be easier to detect cows in heat and inseminate them at the right time. The expression of natural behaviours is one of the criteria of animal welfare. A sign that your cows feel safe is that they dare to lift a leg to lick themselves.
When animal welfare meets workplace safety
The stability provided by rubber mats is also a guarantee of safety for breeders. It's also more comfortable for us,« jokes Damien Soulard. Even with wet boots, we no longer risk slipping and injuring ourselves.