OTTO

Grooming behaviour is not incidental to cow welfare, it is a fundamental biological requirement. Cows actively seek to rub, scratch, and clean themselves, removing external parasites, skin impurities, and the irritants that elevate stress, suppress immune function, and create the skin condition vulnerability that contributes to mastitis risk. When that grooming need is met consistently and effectively, the outcomes are measurable: improved circulation, better thermoregulation, reduced cortisol load, more settled herd behaviour, and the milk production gains that follow from animals in genuinely good health. The OTTO Cattle Brush is engineered to meet that need, for every animal in the herd, with the reliability and safety that a commercial dairy operation demands.

The Installation Problem, Solved
Hanging cattle brushes — suspended from barn ceiling structures or overhead rails are the conventional grooming solution for modern freestall dairy operations. They deliver excellent coverage and high voluntary engagement rates where barn height, ceiling structure, and available space permit installation. But a significant proportion of the global dairy barn stock are particularly older facilities, converted buildings, and operations with low ceiling clearance or simply have restricted overhead space and cannot accommodate hanging brush installation without structural modification that is impractical or uneconomical. The OTTO’s wall mounted design eliminates that constraint entirely. It delivers professional-grade grooming performance from a ground-level installation that requires no overhead structure, no ceiling clearance, and no barn modification beyond the wall mounting itself. For operations that have been unable to provide mechanical grooming due to barn limitations, the OTTO is not simply an alternative — it is the only viable solution.

Brush Architecture and Full-Body Coverage
The OTTO system’s defining design feature is its single cone-style bottom brus configuration to achieve grooming coverage across the complete range of body areas that cows seek to groom: head, neck, back, tail base, the full depth of each side, and the rear.

NORD Brushless Motor: German Engineering for Commercial Performance
The OTTO brush is powered by a German-engineered NORD brushless motor, chosen for two operational characteristics that define its value in a commercial dairy context: energy efficiency and reliability. Brushless motor technology delivers optimised power output relative to energy consumption compared to conventional brushed alternatives, reducing the running cost of grooming across the cumulative operating hours of a well-used brush system. NORD’s engineering and manufacturing standards provide the reliability that a system expected to operate continuously in a corrosive, high-humidity barn environment requires. The integrated inverter enables soft start and stop, a design feature with a direct animal behaviour consequence. A brush that starts and stops abruptly startles animals, creates aversion, and reduces voluntary engagement. A brush that starts gently and stops smoothly encourages confident approach, sustained contact, and the repeated engagement across the full herd that maximises the welfare and production benefits of the grooming investment.

Intelligent Activation and Energy Management
The OTTO system activates automatically when a cow makes contact with the brush and shuts down after 50 seconds of inactivity. This motion-sensor activation and timed shutdown protocol minimises energy consumption without reducing availability. The brush is always ready when an animal approaches and never running unnecessarily when the area is unoccupied. Overload protection provides a further layer of operational intelligence, detecting abnormal loading conditions and protecting the motor from the damage that sustained overload would otherwise cause.

Tail-Release Safety: Designed for the Unexpected
Tail entanglement is a known risk in cattle brush operation. One that conventional systems manage poorly, often requiring operator intervention to release the animal and creating the injury and distress that an entanglement event left unresolved causes. The OTTO system addresses this through automatic overload detection: when the system detects the resistance signature of a tail entanglement, it immediately reverses the brush rotation twice, releasing the tail safely and without operator presence. The animal is protected. The operation is uninterrupted. The risk of injury is eliminated by system design rather than dependent on operator response time.

Wear Management and Service Life Extension
The alternating rotation direction changes with each start-up, distributing mechanical wear evenly across all brush elements rather than concentrating it in the direction of primary rotation. This simple but effective design feature extends the service life of the brush elements, reduces the frequency of replacement, and maintains consistent grooming performance across the full operational life of the system. Over a five-year warranty period, the cost difference between a brush that manages its own wear and one that does not is significant, and the OTTO system’s alternating rotation is the mechanism through which that saving is delivered.

Stainless Steel Construction Throughout
All critical components including motor mounting plate, bearings, through rod, bolts, and nuts are manufactured from stainless steel. Barn environments are aggressively corrosive: continuous exposure to ammonia, moisture, urine, and organic acids challenges every material at every joint and connection point across the service life of any installed component. Stainless steel construction at every critical interface eliminates the corrosion-driven structural degradation that shortens the service life of conventionally constructed brush systems, and provides the long-term reliability that a five-year warranty commitment requires.

Adjustable Mounting and Herd Compatibility
Mounting height is fully adjustable to match the typical size profile of the herd, ensuring that the dual-brush configuration achieves optimal contact coverage across the body areas where grooming benefit is greatest for the animals using it. A brush mounted at the wrong height for the herd delivers reduced coverage, reduced engagement, and reduced return on investment. The OTTO system’s adjustability ensures that the grooming geometry is matched to the herd from the first day of operation.