Milking cows can crack and discolour the skin on hands, but after 33 years as a dairy farmer Chris Lethbridge's hands are as soft and pale as an office worker's.
He attributes his clean and tidy hands to the 40 per cent glycerine content in the Teat-Mate spray he helped concoct for conditioning the teats of his dairy cows.
"I had black hands until four years ago -- now they are like a baby's bum," he said yesterday.
Teat-Mate spray is based on saline solution, glycerine and aloe vera, avoiding iodine and chlorhexidine traditionally used in teat sprays aimed at reducing the chance of cows developing mastitis.
Lethbridge, 54, and his wife, Pauline, milk 360 cows on 120ha at Hukerenui. They developed Teat-Mate with their friends John and Amanda Hawken, a Hamilton couple with backgrounds in science. They got Agricultural Chemical and Veterinary Medicines registration for the product and Teat-Mate was launched at the Innovation Centre during the National Fieldays last month. Lethbridge says their stand was swamped with inquiries, possibly because it was the sole dairy product on show.
