EN The only time a cow could have a shackle is if she had an injury to her leg for example, and required the additional stability in order to stand.
They stop cows from slipping over and making injuries sustained from things, such as calving, any worse.
Shackles are a terrible name for a practical part of milk production and certainly not associated with any certain dairy system
Neil Baker, farm manager
In this case, it would be temporary and of necessity, and never ever out of cruelty.
NB Shackles are a terrible name for a practical part of milk production and certainly not associated with any certain dairy system.
When I was a kid, on a farm which had 200 4,000-litre grazing Friesians, we had shackles on more cows then than I have today. Cows don’t care about them at all as soon as they are used to them.
We don’t put them on for fun, we put them on as they aid a cow’s recovery. Are they left on too long in some farms? Yes.
Should they have a new name? Yes. Should farms with high usage analyse issues causing this on their farms and do something about it? Yes.