Working with animals
Working with animals
The unpredictability of livestock, inexperienced workers, interactions during husbandry practices, loading and unloading livestock, and inadequate or poorly maintained yards, races, gates and crushes, are leading causes of harm.
SafeWork NSW and industry agree to:
- support industry to develop and promote case studies on innovative solutions to manage the risks of injury to farm workers and livestock carriers while loading and unloading livestock
- support the awareness of Q fever and zoonosis
- promote the need and benefits of training in safe animal handling practices for all farm workers, particularly inexperienced workers
- promote the requirement to ensure yards, races, gates and crushes are maintained and incorporate good safe design principles (eg escape routes)
- support the equine industry in embedding the Code of practice managing risks when new or inexperienced riders or handlers interact with horses in the workplace
- work with emergency services to collect information to support harm prevention strategies.
We will know we are on track if:
- major claims caused by being hit by an animal drop 20% by 2022 using baseline data specific to the agricultural sector 2011/12 to 2015/16
- well-equipped and maintained yards, races, gates and crushes identified during SafeWork NSW site visits increase over time.