May 26, 2009
Guru - like so many innocent observers - has long laboured under the opinion that farming is a gentle profession, peopled by chubby rosy-cheeked types in cords and Barbours. Yet it appears that some of these brave types are facing, day in, day out, a hitherto unknown peril - the noisy pig.
According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a bunch of hungry pigs squealing over their lunch can hit more than 100 decibels. (Employers are legally obliged to protect their workers from any noise over 80 decibels, equivalent to the noise inside a tractor cab).
HSE inspector Tony Mitchell says: "If you can imagine a shed with three to 400 hungry sows waiting for you to come and feed them and they are all squealing at the same time, the noise they make can be quite dramatic."
The HSE is recommending that pig farmers either use automated feeding systems or wear ear plugs (by Barbour, Guru hopes).
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Comments (2)
I haven't spent much time around pigs, but I do know that my two cats are the loudest, most obnoxious creatures in the world when they think it is time for breakfast and they will stop at nothing, NOTHING to get me out of bed. One of them even figured out how to get inside the air duct in the basement (where they had been banished so we could sleep) and make her way to the grate in the wall in our bedroom so she could make her demands known up close.
I do, however, think that farmers are probably smart enough to figure out on their own whether they need ear plugs or not without some bureaucrat bossing them around.
Posted by class factotum | May 26, 2009 2:32 PM
Posted on May 26, 2009 14:32
I'm the hard of herding :-)
Posted by Stress Training Mark | May 26, 2009 6:28 PM
Posted on May 26, 2009 18:28