Farmers have been cautioned about wearing high visibility vests around cattle inside marts and factories by a UK-based agricultural scientist.

Cattle have dichromic vision, which means that colours like blue, yellow and green are easier for the animal to distinguish than red, similar to colour blindness.

Miriam Parker, a specialist consultant on livestock handling and behaviour who was attending a Teagasc Future Beef farm walk in Kildalton College, told the Irish Farmers Journalthat farmers need to weigh up the risks in each situation.

“Generally speaking, in factories and to a certain extent markets, when you are in amongst the livestock, wearing a high-vis jacket is not a wonderful idea because the animals are in a strange place. They might be spooked and you’re in close quarters with them,” she explained.

Safety

“The key thing that is the issue is the movement of that contrast [of colours]. It’s the movement that might trigger the spook rather than just the colour.

If you see lots of walkers in high-visibility walking through cattle fields, and they’ve never seen them before, you’ll see the cows react.”

National Farm Survey data showed livestock were involved in 21% of farm fatalities between 2015 and 2024 with 33 farmers being killed from being attacked or knocked over by cattle or bulls.?