Cow giving birth on display at Fieldays

If you’ve walked into the Fieldays Innovation Centre this year you might have noticed a cow giving birth on display. No, it’s not a real cow, but in some cases, it’s replacing them. 

Mike Williams and David Johnson from Hamilton-based Holsim develop animal manikins for vet training to help develop clinical skills.

Mike said the idea came about when they realised it was getting harder for vet students to practice on real animals.

“We realised that it’s getting harder and harder to access animals from the meat works to use and it’s not really great practice to be transferring offal around the place – you have the chance of spreading disease and there are animal ethics issues,” Mike said.

The cow and pigs on display belong to Massey University’s vet school.

“In talking in detail with Massey vet school, they were just saying ‘we need simulators’. They’ve actually decided that they don’t want to use animals for training purposes unless they absolutely have to. That includes dogs, cats, sheep and llamas and all the rest of it.

“What we’ve got here is the birthing simulator. It can do a caesarian, blood taking, hoof care, udder care, that sort of thing. So, you can practice your clinical skills and get to a good level before you actually go and start practicing on real animals.”

Mike said when Holsim first started out they began working with artificial insemination company, LIC, on insemination models, but soon realised there was a much bigger opportunity and so that’s when we started focusing on other animals too. 

He said as well as Massey University vet school, Dairy NZ was going to get a couple of practice animals shortly too.

“With the other animals, we are in 10 countries around the world, so this is just the next generation, the next bunch of things that are coming through. 

Mike said it had been fun watching people react to the simulators at Fieldays.

“A lot of the farmers want to tell us their most gruesome stories and it’s been pretty grim,” he laughed.

David said on the flip side a lot of the little children enjoyed running up to the pig to play with its tail.

Watch the video to see David talk about the app that works alongside the cow birthing simulator.

For more information head to Holsim’s website here.

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