Apparently, farmers are being told to wear hearing protection due to the noise level of pigs during feeding. The little oinkers squeal to the tune of 100dB or more while being fed! Remember that hearing can be damaged in as little as 15 minutes at 100 dB, so I guess if Farmer Joe wants to keep his hearing, he’s going to need some protection.

According to the NASD (National Ag Safety Database, United States), farmers have more hearing loss than other occupations. If you think about it, farmers are independent and therefore not governed by the usual safety laws that protect employees in an industrial setting by forcing compliance. So, even though many of the noises on a farm are at decibel levels high enough to cause hearing damage in a short time, the farmer may or may not protect his or her hearing or that of the hired help.

Hearing protection is one of the most inexpensive safety measures that exist. A simple Moldex Purafit 250 Pair Station is inexpensive, will supply hearing protection for 250 pig feedings and can be easily mounted outside the feeding facility for convenience. Another way to go for hearing protection on the farm would be reusable earplugs.

I wonder what other types of farming noises can cause hearing damage? A tractor carrying a heavy load is around 90 decibels. A petrol fueled grass cutter is 96 decibels. Doing some repairs or clearing some pasture? A circular saw and chainsaw both have noise levels of 100 decibels.

I had a hard time finding information on noise levels of farm critters other than pigs, but I imagine a barn full of dairy cows mooing during milking would be noisy, as would the milking equipment. What about neighing nags, braying donkeys and bleating sheep? (This is starting to sound like one of my son’s animal books!)

I found that llamas scream from time to time and “orgle” while they mate. Ostriches boom, which is an eery sound, but not necessarily damaging, so I suppose the ostrich farmers are safe.

I did find a story about some annoying chickens that were bothering the neighbourhood and a tragic story about 800 chickens who met their end via firecrackers. The noise literally scared them to death! Lawsuit pending.

As for the neighbours with the crowing roosters and cackling hens, I would suggest some sleeping earplugs. I’m sorry to report, however, that I don’t know of any hearing protection for the chickens themselves.

Cheers for now!

Meghan

Tags: hearing damage, Hearing Protection, Moldex, Purafit, purafit 250 pair station, Reusable, Sleeping Earplugs

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 10:21 am and is filed under earcare. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.