NOISE INVESTIGATION IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF CATTLE BARNS

Abstract

Farmers or farm workers may be exposed to noise in their farms, including livestock farms. Depending on the specifics of the farms, the equipment used, the technology of raising cattle, the construction of barns, noise pollution of both the environment and workplaces is possible. There is not much of information on noise levels in the scientific literature, so the purpose of this study was to determine the noise levels in the barns and to identify the noisiest equipment and to measure the noise level in the barns and to evaluate its possible impact on workers. Noise measurements were carried out in a typical 50 cow barn in Lithuania, where the internal noise levels of various technological operations and background noise in barns were measured. The results show that noise levels are only significant in the vacuum pump room (88, dB(A), while the noise exposure of barn workers is lower than the prescribed limit values.