The Moos Room™

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Emily: Welcome, everybody, to The Moos Room special episode this week. You just have me, Emily, checking in with you today for a little bit of a windshield time podcast. We're reaching the end of summer here and I know for a lot of dairy farmers especially that means corn silage harvest season is coming up. I think that we are going to see some challenges this year. I think it is going to be an extra stressful time just given the drought conditions that we have been going through, but I always like to remind people, of course, that this is a time of year that we need to really start to think about safety.
Of course, we need to be thinking about it year-round. I know that you all know that, but I'd like to give these special reminders at times of year that can be particularly dangerous, and silage harvest, in particular, has some really unique challenges to it that we need to be mindful of. A lot of what I'm going to share with you today is based off of things that I have done in the field with farms that I've worked with, advice that they have taken that has really worked for them, and ideas that they've given me as well.
To start off, you know I love to talk about the people side of safety and just overall wellbeing and the importance of wellbeing to safety. When we feel well, we are able to perform well. Harvest, especially, is something that requires good performance. We need to have our wits about us, we need to be able to be focused. A big part of that, of course, is being well-rested, getting enough sleep every night. I know, I know, I say it every time and it's probably somewhat laughable, I know, because when it's busy it can be hard to get enough sleep, but six hours of sleep. Seven to nine is really the sweet spot where you want to be. That is enough sleep for the average adult every night, but I'm saying six hours that will get you a pass for me. Sleep is so important. It helps our brains and our body recharge every night.
In addition to sleep, of course, eating well. I know that we have a lot of farms now that have crews that help make them food and that's great so that people are getting well-rounded meals every day. I know it's so easy to grab a pop and candy bar and be done with it because those are easy, they're convenient, but they are not going to give you the nutrition that you need and they're not going to give your brain the different nutrients that you need as well. Again, it's all about thinking clearly. There is a relationship between our health and how safely we're able to conduct ourselves and so I think that that's really important as well. Think about what you're eating and, again, balanced meals, so think protein, carbs, fats, those are the things that you want. Very good for you, again, can help your brain function as well. Those are the big things.
Then. of course, I have to talk about stress as well. It's a stressful time, and like I said, as we're going through a drought that we've been in during the summer, there's a lot of pressure on farmers to get a good crop up. This is the future feed for the herd and so I know that there can be a lot of pressure there. In addition to just the general pressure that there is around harvest season, there's a lot of moving pieces. You're still trying to do your day-to-day farm tasks while also get up quality feed. There's a lot going on, and so making sure we're just doing those little things to take care of ourselves, like sleeping and eating. Give yourself a 10-minute break every day. I know you can think of all the things that you could do in 10 minutes on the farm, but I think it's so important for us to take 10 minutes just for us.
If you're just going to take a walk around or just be somewhere where people can't find you I think that that will help make us all a little bit better. It's important too that if you are a manager or somebody who has employees, making sure your employees or the people that are on your harvest crew are getting little breaks as well, again, 5, 10 minutes get some water, go on a walk, have a chance to just scroll through your phone for a few minutes, any of those things that just allow us to take a break, and especially, it gives our brains and our bodies a break.
Now that we're through that stuff, the people safety, or the people wellness I should say, because we got a lot more people safety coming up here, we'd think about silage harvest, like I said at the very beginning of this episode, there's the usual harvest safety things that we think about, and then some of those things that are more unique to silage harvest. Generally, in harvest what do we know? Just like spring planting there's going to be increased traffic on the roads, farm implements, all of that. If you are somebody in your normal vehicle and you see a farm implement or a tractor, remember, be very, very cautious, slow down for this farm equipment, give them the space that they need, and making sure that if you are going to pass or try to move around them, making sure the coast is clear and if you aren't sure you're better off just staying behind them.
On the flip side, and for many of our listeners, I know that you are going to be the one in the tractor, in the combine, whatever it might be, and so making sure that you're doing those pre-trip inspections, make sure that your flashers work, making sure that you have that beautiful orange and red triangle, that slow-moving vehicle emblem, affixed and very visible because that is also Minnesota State Law for anything that's traveling under 30 miles per hour. It should have a slow-moving vehicle emblem on it as well.
Making sure everything else, all the buttons, all the levers, all your pedals, everything seems to be in good working order. Your hydraulic, your PTO hookup, all of those things, stub, all of that, needs to be ready. Then, in addition, when you are driving, just practicing really safe driving habits, so again, having those flashers on, driving at a speed that is safe and also comfortable for you, watching out for soft shoulders on the road. I know, "Oh, maybe we won't have those in drought," but you never know. Again, just all of those little things.
While you're on the road too, of course, being aware of drivers around you. I know a lot of farmers that work really hard to try to get to the side of the road to clear the way for drivers and that's great, but I really ask that you aren't putting yourself in danger just to let somebody pass by you [chuckles]. I think that that's really, really important to remember. Then moving on from some of that standard roadway stuff, again, making sure that your drivers, whether that's you or an employee, somebody you hire, that they're able to do their job well. If you have concerns about their ability to operate safely you need to say something. We all want to avoid accidents on our farms, and that's a way that you can do it, and making sure that the people you have doing these various tasks are well-trained. I think training is so, so important.
That brings me to what I consider the most unique part with Silage Harvest and that is when we need to actually pack it. Usually, it's put into a bunker, something like that, and that's a unique job just to silage harvest and so think about that. We have people unloading silage, we have tractors packing the silage, we have people eventually covering the silage pile. These things that take a lot of manpower that's very important, but then the more people you add, the more risk you have with people getting in accidents and different things to think about. Again, making sure your team that does that is well-trained.
As a farm manager, the farm owner, whatever, it falls to you. That's who it falls to, to make sure people know what they're doing. Oftentimes maybe we want to train, but we think, "Oh, they're going to think that I think they're dumb, that they don't know what they're doing," but we need to remember this is a task that most people do once a year. I know, for me, if I'm at the state fair helping with something or whatever it is that only happens once a year, I usually need a little refresher. There's nothing wrong with doing that. It's a part of promoting a culture of safety on your farm, letting people know, "This is important and I want you to be well trained so you can do your job well and so that you can do it safely also."
Also, it helps give your employees buy-in or the people that you hire or have on hand they get buy-in to wanting to promote that culture of safety as well. Training super, super important. Then back to those piles or when we're pegging or packing bunkers, and there just seems like there's a lot of people. Especially when you have people in equipment and people boots on the ground, visibility is huge.
I mentioned early on some different things I've done with farms I've worked with in the past. One of those things is having all the silage crew wear safety vests. Just high-vis vests or high-vis t-shirts, whatever you might have, especially for those tractor operators, the ones that are doing the packing on the piles, so they can see who's around. There's going to be a lot of people moving around that pile, and when you're in a tractor, you sometimes can't see everything super, super clearly. Being able to have that aid just to see people that much quicker can be really helpful as well. I really encourage that. Even the people in the tractors too should have that on, in case they do need to get out of the tractor to grab something or as they're switching out various equipment or things, and so visibility.
Speaking of visibility, more specifically, vision, I also encourage silage crews to wear safety glasses. I think we've all had a hunk of silage, a leaf, a piece of dirt, a hunk of gravel, or something get into our eye and it hurts. Then we either need to leave the area to take care of it, so now you're down some labor, or we just try to work through it and we could cause more eye damage if we don't take care of it right away. Again, one of those little things, something that you can get really inexpensively, give to everybody on your crew so that they have it, and then store them all to use again next year. These are small investments that you can make that will increase the safety on your farm.
It's sometimes hard to talk about return on investment when it comes to safety, right? Just think about if you're doing everything you can to avoid accidents, you're avoiding workers' comp claims, you are avoiding people in the hospital, people injured, all of that. If it's something as simple as a safety vest and some safety glasses, why not make that investment to avoid potential further investment, greater investment in a much worse situation down the road?
To recap here as we've been talking about silage harvest safety, things we want to think about, always taking care of ourselves, taking care of our people, sleep, fuel, all of those things, so, so important, making sure people are eating well, getting the rest that they need. Maybe that even means putting time limits on how long somebody's in a tractor to ensure that they get a break so that we get some fresh eyes and fresh bodies working on things as well when it's possible. Those are really important.
Just our standard safety, making sure our equipment is in working order using roadways safely. That applies even to the farm yard too, being really aware of where you are and who is there. That ties back in, of course, to making sure that anybody on the team is visible, knows how to be safe, has the proper PPE that they may need to do this job as well.
Just a quick little episode for you guys this week. Like I said, just wanted to get out there and get some of these safety messages out as we enter into silage harvest. I wish you all a very safe harvest. Of course, if you have additional questions about farm safety, you can find more information on our website extension .umn.edu/farmsafety. You can also find us on Twitter @UMNFarmSafety and @UMNmoosroom. If you have questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals, as always, you can send those to themoosroom@umn.edu. That's themoosroom@umn.edu. Thank you so much for listening and we will catch you next week. Bye.
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