Ergonomics of Cow Milking in Sweden

ABSTRACT When milking cows that are kept in stanchion barns, the milker has to use various working postures and movements that involve walking, sitting, rising, squatting, kneeling, stooping, bending, twisting and stretching. They must do this while holding a load of 3-6 kg (cluster, teat cups) in one hand under the cow's udder at a relatively long distance from the body. This is the usual working situation for most farmers and farm workers in Swedish dairy production. Only 5 per cent of the seventeen thousand Swedish dairy farms have any type of loose-housing system with parlor milking, which reduces a lot of the ergonomic stress. An increasing number of the milkers and the relief personnel now working in dairy farming are young women who may have less physical strength than men. Much additional research is needed to obtain the data necessary for the planning of safer and better dairy barns, in which the average man or woman can work. This paper is a review of research conducted over the past 20 years, w...