Hoofcount Automatic Footbaths
The footbath that runs whether or not anybody had time — built in Lancashire, sized to your race, fitted and serviced by our own engineers.
The Job That Was Always Going to Happen on Monday
Nobody plans to skip footbathing. It just competes with everything else, and it loses.
Mixing a bath by hand is a wet, unpleasant twenty minutes with a drum of chemical, and it has to be done again when the bath is dirty rather than when the diary says so. So it slips. It slips in the week the relief milker is on, and in the week the silage is ready, and in the week somebody is off — and those are exactly the weeks the cows are walking through more muck than usual.
An automatic bath removes the decision. It fills, doses, washes and refills on a schedule or on a cow count, and it does it at two in the morning without anybody being asked. Hoofcount put it plainly in a customer’s words on their own site: the farm always meant to set the bath up every Monday and it often did not happen.
Feet are also downstream of the floor. If the passages are only scraped when there is time, the bath is fighting the shed — see scrapers and manure robots.
Fill, Dose, Wash, Refill — Without You
The machine is simple on purpose. What makes it work is that none of it waits for a person.
Runs on cows, clock or command
Set it to cycle after a number of cows through the bath, on a timer, or by hand. Cow counting is the honest one: a bath that has had 180 cows through it needs changing whatever time of day it is.
A moving spray bar
The bath washes itself from top to bottom with a spray bar that travels the length of it, rather than a fixed jet rinsing the middle and leaving the ends.
Two chemical pumps
Two pumps means two products, on the days you choose for each, without anybody carrying a drum across the yard to swap them over.
Concentration you set
Strength and the specific days chemical is added are set on the controller and then simply happen. What strength, and which product, is a conversation for your vet or hoof trimmer — not for us.
Marine-grade stainless
Every bath is built from marine-grade stainless steel. It lives in the wettest, most corrosive spot on the farm and it is made accordingly.
Built to your race
There is no standard size. Baths are made bespoke to the space, which is the difference between a bath cows walk through and a bath cows walk round.
Standard or Excel — Dips per Hoof Is the Deciding Number
Two baths, and the choice is about herd size and where it is going in.
The Standard is up to 3 metres long and 800mm wide inside, and gives two dips per hoof. It suits smaller herds and it is the one most often paired with robots, where floor space is short.
The Excel is up to 3.7 metres long but narrower inside at 600mm, and that combination gives three dips per hoof instead of two. It is built for herds of 200 and upwards, and particularly for the exit of a rotary. Stainless side sheets keep chemical in the bath and stop cows walking along the edges.
Three dips rather than two is not a marketing number. It is how many times each foot is actually submerged on one pass, and it is the reason the narrower bath is the bigger-herd answer.
Where the Bath Goes When There Is No Parlour
A robot farm has no exit race in the conventional sense, and that changes where a footbath can sit.
Space is usually at a premium around robots, so Hoofcount recommend the Standard bath rather than the Excel. What you actually need depends on how many robots there are and how the shed is laid out — on many head-to-head farms a single bath on the exit race does the whole herd, because the cow traffic already funnels through one point.
This is the part worth getting right before the shed is built rather than after. As the leading Fullwood dealer in Scotland, we design the layout the robots go into, so the footbath can be part of that drawing instead of something squeezed in afterwards. Robotic milking.
PediVue — The Camera at the Exit
Launched in 2024, PediVue sits at the exit of the bath and looks at every foot that goes past it.
It uses vision and machine learning to monitor each hoof daily and flag very early signs of digital dermatitis — Mortellaro. The value is not that it finds lameness. Anybody can find lameness; by the time you can see it from the gate the cow has already lost you milk and is already harder to treat. The value is that it flags the foot before the cow is visibly lame.
It is a detection system and nothing more. It does not diagnose and it is not a treatment plan — what is wrong with the foot and what to do about it is a conversation with your vet or your hoof trimmer. For trimming equipment, see hoof trimming crushes.
Quoted, Fitted and Serviced by Us
We sell Hoofcount, we install it, and we are the ones who come back to it.
Fitting a footbath is plumbing, drainage and power as much as it is the bath itself. It needs a water feed, somewhere for the spent chemical to go that suits your slurry system, and a supply for the controller and the pumps — and it needs to sit where cows will walk through it rather than hesitate at it. That is a site visit, not a phone call — and the way to arrange one is the Stirling office or the service inbox.
Ring Stirling
01786 474 481. The engineering office at Springkerse, Stirling. Ask about a machine, book a site visit, or order a part.
Email service
service@mccaskie.co.uk. For anything that can wait for a reply: a quote, a service booking, a question about something we fitted.
Once it is in, it is covered by the same twenty-four hour, seven day call-out as everything else we install. How that works out of hours, and who answers, is on service and call-out.
Footbath Questions
What is an automatic footbath?
A footbath set into the cow race that fills, doses itself with chemical, washes itself out and refills without anybody doing it by hand. A Hoofcount can be triggered by a cow count, by a timer, or manually, and it will run at two in the morning as readily as at two in the afternoon.
Who fits Hoofcount footbaths in Scotland?
McCaskie. We sell, install and service them from our engineering base at Springkerse in Stirling, with a second service centre at Ayr and eight engineers between them. Call-out runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
What is the difference between the Standard and the Excel?
Dips per hoof. The Standard is up to 3m long and 800mm wide inside and gives two dips per hoof; the Excel is up to 3.7m long but narrower at 600mm, which gives three. The Standard suits smaller herds and robot farms where space is tight. The Excel is built for herds of 200 and up, and especially for a rotary exit.
Can I fit an automatic footbath on a robot farm?
Yes, and it is common. Space is usually short around robots so the Standard bath is normally the answer. What you need depends on robot numbers and shed layout — on many head-to-head farms one bath on the exit race covers the whole herd. We design robot layouts, so it is better decided before the shed is built than afterwards.
What chemical should I use and at what strength?
That is a question for your vet or your hoof trimmer, and it depends on what you are treating and what your herd is walking through. We will not give you a concentration off a website. What the machine does is hold whatever protocol you are given and apply it consistently — two pumps means two products on different days without anybody swapping drums.
How often does the bath need changing?
That is what the cow counter is for. A bath that has had a set number of cows through it is dirty whatever the clock says, and the machine changes it on that basis rather than on a routine somebody has to remember.
Does it detect lameness?
The bath does not. PediVue, launched in 2024, does — it is a camera at the exit of the bath that monitors each hoof daily and flags very early signs of digital dermatitis, before a cow is visibly lame. It is a detection system, not a diagnosis, and what to do about the foot is a conversation with your vet.
Where are Hoofcount footbaths made?
In Lancashire. Hoofcount are based at Barnacre near Preston and every bath is custom built there in marine-grade stainless steel, sized to the race it is going into rather than picked off a shelf.