Cleaning and bedding down dairy cow cubicles can be a time-consuming business, but thanks to Northern Irish inventor Daniel Broderick, it has been streamlined into a speedy, single-pass operation.

His self-propelled Cubi-Clean runs on three wheels and has a front-mounted rotating sweeper to quickly brush out cubicles.

At the same time, a scraper mounted under the machine clears the slats, while bedding material is spread from a hopper at the rear.

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Refilling this hopper is simple, thanks to a tipper mechanism that drops it to ground level so that it acts as a scoop.

All the operator needs to do is reverse into the pile of material to fill it, before lifting it back to the spreading position.

When working at full capacity, the unit can clean and bed down as many as 200 cubicles in just five minutes.

According to Mr Broderick, the Cubi-Clean has the added benefit of using less bedding material than manual methods and, thanks to the aggressive brushing action, farmers using it have reported lower somatic cell counts.

Power comes from a diesel engine, which is coupled to a hydraulic system. This powers everything from the rear wheels and sweeper brush to the scraper and bedding material hopper.