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Lely introduces the Interlock rubber floor
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Lely has
recently added a rubber floor to its range of products. The product
will be marketed using the name Interlock. Lely has obtained the
exclusive selling rights for the European market. The rubber floor
is used on walking alleys in the cow barn, to improve the cow
comfort.
Using rubber as a walking surface creates a major improvement for
the movement of the animals. The floor, made of recycled rubber, is
providing much better grip and a softer walking surface. The
reduction on claw injuries and stress on joints is tremendous, and
because, compared with concrete, the floor provides a much better
grip, animals move around a lot easier. The natural behaviour is
stimulated, and especially in robot farms the cow routing improves
considerably.
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The floor
originates from Canada were it has been in use for about 7 years
now. Many farms, ranging from 50 to 2000 cows are using it. This
experience provides considerable knowledge about the application of
the floor, and results are proven. The rubber can be applied on
straight concrete surfaces, as well as on slatted floors, with an
adapted profile. In most cases the use of scrapers is recommended
in order to maintain or improve clean flooring.
The rubber floor is built up out of mats interlocked to each other
rather like a jig saw puzzle. It is fitted to the ground with
simple connectors, and for a slatted floor special slat locks are
used. The floor can be combined with different type of scrapers,
hydraulic, chain or rope versions and have all been proven to work
well. |
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At the moment
Lely has sold the Interlock floors to several farmers and research
institutes in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. With the
excellent results from Canada and the USA, Lely expects that the
Interlock floors will rapidly gain popularity in the European
market |
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