Quick draw for cleaner needles

Otago Daily Times

3 days ago

A holster worn on the hip which sterilises needles each time a farmer vaccinates cattle is the idea of a University of Canterbury student wanting to launch it after winding up her studies.
Jade Luxton's Steerineedle holster cleans needles to reduce animal infections, lowers vet costs and can shave two and a-half hours off vaccinating a 300-strong herd.
Using the sterilising method while vaccinating cattle or using anesthetic to remove velvet from deer takes just a few seconds.
The third-year product design student got the idea for her sterilising holster as a schoolgirl.
"It actually started in high school when we were challenged to save a real-world problem in the agricultural industry. One of our friend's granddads came to us who was a deer farmer and said he was so sick of constantly changing needles between each of his deer during velveting season. So we looked further into this problem and found needles could be sterilised."
Then she got the idea of using a hip holster to speed up the process.
She said farmers would no longer have to change needles between each animal or worry about passing on diseases or causing abscesses from infected needles.
More than 8000 livestock are estimated to die each year from infections caused largely by unclean needles, costing the industry $12 million.
About 85% of farmers do not change needles between animals and 80% of abscesses are linked to dirty needles. Abscesses can result in the costly rejection of animals at meat works.
Miss Luxton, 20, said the holster was made of plastic at this stage, but the design was still under product development.
An antiseptic solution at the bottom of the holster sterilised the needles.
"The farmers just have to dip it in and it will take a second for the needle to be cleaned. It speeds up the time during livestock vaccinating. Changing a needle can take about 30 seconds, but using Steerineedle takes only two seconds. It reduces the disease transmitted on the needle and obviously saves costs in time when it comes to needle changes. You don't have to buy as many needles and you don't have to change as many needles."
A veterinarian callout for treating an abscess could cost about $500, so clean needles reduced costs, she said.
She said the design had been improved with a larger holster to prevent any chance of a farmer jabbing a needle into his hip.
Anti-spill mechanisms were added to contain the sterilising solution with the goal to have enough solution in a holster to last a day.
Raised on family farms in Waikato, Miss Luxton has grown up raising calves and carrying out farming duties.
Farmers hearing about the holster design have already contacted her to buy them and she has received interest from companies.
The Steerineedle design was highly commended in the youth category of the innovation awards at the national Fieldays.
Now she has been named among two other finalists in the Momentum Student Entrepreneur category of the KiwiNet Research Commercialisation Awards with the winners to be announced in Auckland on October 22.
Miss Luxton said she was still coming to terms with how far the product had come from a high school idea.
"I was in a business accelerator programme at uni and love the idea of being an entrepreneur and really want to start my own business and start selling the product. Hopefully I can start manufacturing at the end of this year and then launch early next year."
One of her main drives was to improve the welfare of animals, she said.
The other category finalists are fellow University of Canterbury student Emmalee Abbot Joe who has developed Froth dissolvable haircare tablets for travelling and University of Otago student Josiah Bugden who is helping students make study decisions with his Coursespy platform.
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