The simplest of ideas are often the best. The Tailpainter device was designed and constructed by Cork-based dairy farmer and AI technician Liam O’Keeffe. The idea seems simple, but a fair amount of design and testing has gone into it.

It’s not just a case of putting a bottle of paint on the other end of stick – the Tailpainter has a patented roller mechanism that applies the paint on to the cow but prevents too much paint coming out and prevents the paint from drying out in the bottle.

The device is primarily designed for tailpainting when cows are in the parlour. Tailpainter has fully adjustable length and the angle can also be adjusted so it is suitable for all types of milking parlours, all types of cows and all shapes of operators. Because it is adjustable, it can also be used for painting cows in a crush.

The big selling point is that the operator doesn’t have to jump out of the pit to paint the cows – it can all be done from the pit floor. Liam says that when used to it, you should be able to paint a cow in around three seconds, so a row of 20 cows can be painted in one minute, which is fair going.

The Irish Farmers Journal trialled the Tailpainter last week and found it to be very effective. The paint was applied very evenly and in my view not too much paint was used. One possible criticism of the device was that the roller was sticking a small bit, meaning sometimes it tended to smear rather than roll. When more downward pressure was applied it freed up again so the problem was more likely caused by operator inexperience.

The basic model costs €200 but due to huge demand supply cannot keep up and it will be mid-May before the next batch will be available. Liam is waiting for a special tool to be made which will speed up manufacture and iron out any inconsistencies that may contribute to the roller sticking. Overall I thought it was a good product.

In my view, tailpaint is not being applied correctly or not being topped up often enough on too many farms. Tailpainter will definitely make the job easier and safer.