The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: pointer on May 02, 2016, 04:29:53 pm
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Hi, we're currently trying to plan how to set up the inside of our cattle shed. It will be housing about 6 beasts over winter, and will be used for calving too. We want the set-up to make feeding, dosing, handling and cleaning as easy as possible. It would be great to know how others have done this, with gates, hurdles, yokes, feed rings/barriers, troughs etc. There is a budget for this but, of course, a limited one. All suggestions gratefully received - plans / sketches especially welcome!
thanks
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Hi pointer - how big is your shed? Is it a traditional steading? We are in the process of making our shed into a cattle shed to take our cows out of a traditional Scottish steading. Good luck anyway, let us know how you get on with pics of course!! Dan and Rosemary have some interesting pictures on their cattle info page.
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Hi Scotsdumpy, thanks for the reply. It's 45x30 (foot) steel shed. We're wondering about having permanent pens, barriers etc, or just using hurdles, as we'd want to take it all out at the end of the winter for a proper clean of the building. There are plenty of ideas on farming sites, but so much bigger scale that they're of limited help to us!
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Silage or hay ( big or small bales ) straw (big or small ) and a loader to handle , my preference would by hay as you will use less straw for bedding . I would go for a barrier with self locking yolks over a feed ring less waste and the ability to trap an animal and do things to it . What size of beasts as this will affect handling facilities
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We use cattle hurdles for calf-rearing in the lambing shed, some with pedestrian gates. If you have any plastic water pipe where they can reach it either change the route or get some metal pipe to fit over it. If I kept the calves beyond 8 months I'd have a basic cattle crush with rump bar.
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Thanks for the replies. In answer to your questions:
I'd feed round-bale hay to inwintered youngstock (weaned calves - yearlings) for the reasons you suggest - cost of straw in the West, so would try to minimize the need for it. No loader or other machinery at present - another reason for hay, which I can man-handle, rather than silage. Medium-sized native cross cows would each be in for maybe a week or so around calving.
Good point about water pipe route.
One of the things I'm trying to decide is whether to have sockets in the floor to take semi-permanent pens and kit, or hurdles. I'm not that familiar with how these are set up - is it relatively straightforward to remove gear from sockets for mucking out after turn-out?
And based on both your replies, you've hit on one of the decisions I have to make - self-locking feed barrier, or plain diagonal barrier plus crush? Again, would appreciate thoughts on pros and cons of each.
thanks
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We fitted locking yokes in one part of our cubicles, and diagonal barrier in the other. You can't lock them and leave them, so in practise you don't lock them. In which case, they just cost more, take more space, and are horribly noisy.
We had visions of locking up a beast we wanted the vet to see, or the AI to serve, but because only the head is locked it's not very safe to do AI because the beast can swing its body. So a race is preferable, a crush best. A good gate you can really hold steady up against them is probably better too.
If you do fit yokes, make sure you allow at least the distance per beast they recommend. In practise, again, a bully cow will still bully the beasts on either side of her, and if they're locked in, they can't evade. So they must have enough space.
With only 6 beasts, you won't be able to use up a bale of silage before it's off anyway, so yes, use hay. ;)
If your budget runs to it, cubicles and mattresses will save a fortune on straw. But they'll only work if all the beasts are a similar size; you need the width and length just right, otherwise you get pooing on the mats. Oh, and they only really work for females, of course - males just widdle on them. ::).
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Even with self lockers you still need a race and crush , the only advantages are that they can't draw their heads back while eating forage so waste less / you can feed as individuals if necessary / no bullying and you can do simple treatments pour - on / injections . Metal sleeves work ok you can remove pens , gates but easier with a loader
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Forgot to mention that you can't neck a single beast, leaving the others loose. The loose ones will just pummel the one that's locked up.
Re: wasting forage, we get very little - hardly any, really - dragged through the diagonal barriers. Certainly not enough to justify the expense of locking yokes.
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We made a swing over drop down bar which would lock necks into ordinary sloping feed barriers. It got used more often to keep them from putting their heads into the feed passage than for keeping them there.
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Thanks again for all the advice. I wonder if I can have a few follow-up questions?
First, excuse my ignorance, but how exactly do the cubicles work? - I've got a very rough idea, but never quite figured it out! And I take it they'd have to be permanent fixtures? Anything to save on straw would be a help.
For feed barriers of either kind, how are they fixed in place, and does the bottom bar need to be a set distance off the floor?
re metal sleeves for making gate/pen posts removable - can they just be DIY, or do customized ones come with different makes of gate posts? And how far into the floor do they go?
I probably had been inclining to self-locking barriers - I'd read that having the barrier full of animals helped to negate the 'swinging round' issue. But if they 'clang' noisily and I'd need a crush as well anyway ( I do currently have an old one), then maybe I'll be better just going for plain diagonals.
If you don't mind, would also be good to get your thoughts on watering - floor-mounted trough, wall-mounted bowl, or hose in a barrel?
I think that's me done - for now...!
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Yes I think cubicles would need to be permanent, or at least semi-permanent. We have the IAE ones, lots of good info on their website.
Our best trough arrangement is mains-connected, mounted on blocks so it's a comfortable height for them to drink, recessed so it's not easy for them to poo into (although they do of course manage sometimes ::).). By 'recessed', I mean that the front face of the trough is flush with the wall of their enclosure; if you have the whole trough in their space they will manage to poo into it far more often.
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The IAE site and brochures have lots of good info about recommended spacings, fixing heights, materials and so on too. Our feed barriers are mounted on a row of breeze blocks ( or the modern precast equivalent).
Bateman are also worth a look. We bought our crush and external pens from them, and would have looked at getting cubicles from them had we thought about them at the time. (We got the cubicles a couple of years earlier than the external pens.)
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The problem for you with cubicles is you have no equipment to handle the muck/slurry from behind the cubicles and to store it . water troughs are most commonly used for cattle but bowls are easier to keep fresh and would work for the small amount of cattle you have . Could you make deep litter beds out of peat or cut and dry bracken for bedding . Metal sleeves need to be set in concrete a foot or more and the you drop in posts to hang the gates from . Feed barriers can come in ready to use sections or ex motorway crash barriers 2 at the bottom and 1 for the head are very strong
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If you use square hay bales and pile them up you can use this as a wall and then take a few slices and drop them into a manger below. I have a number of cattle and this worked from the Joel Salatin book. Allow for muck building up so a manger needs to have ropes on pulleys to move it up. You can gain a considerable depth of muck over winter I dont think Ive ever seen ours so thick due to the beasts going out late. You do not want to be cleaning out or losing nutrients or run off so leaving it in there to crust and break down with help make the best compost.
Our cubicles are put in close to calving using the cattle hurdles which are self supporting (pins) and you could knock up some fixtures on the wall. The mistake we made is that we didnt have a calving pen with yolk and this will be one for next year - you can use the hurdles and gates to enclose the animal. Outside is our run and crush. You can buy good crush on ebay quite cheap. Ensure there is a closing gate. Use crash barriers as a run. Watch the height as you get the odd jumper.
If you make any fixtures permanent then clearing out is a problem and you never know what other options you may have. Take it all down, steam clean and pack away.
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The best system for you using no or very little straw and not needing a race or crate and minimal equipment ?? A traditional BYRE with a modern twist ( rubber mats and neck collars )
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Our new livestock market has some long, thin water troughs that you can empty by turning them over, which seems a good idea, providing you've got somewhere sensible for the mucky water to run to.
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Thanks farmerswife, do you mean you use hurdles at right angles to the wall as cubicle partitions? - so lugs fitted to the wall and then pined in place? How far apart do they go for this, and would hurdles not be a bit long, ie take up more space than is necessary? I'm not calling into question what you're doing as you've been at it much longer than me; just checking I haven't missed anything. I'm assuming 10-ft hurdles.
I agree with your point about permanent fixtures - I anticipate the building will have stock in for 5 months or so, so I'll want to be able to clear it completely for the rest of the time.
shep53, thanks for your thoughts. How exactly did the traditional byre work? I understod cow was chained facing wall - is that still legal? Would it then be fed individually by hay rack on the wall, or what? Is it posts in sleeves you use yourself, or just hurdles?
This is all very useful for me, and hopefully also for other "lurkers", which I usually am myself! :thumbsup:
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Put in DAIRY COW COMFORT TIE-STALL DIMENSIONS byres are still big in America / Canada /Europe just went out of favour in the uk as it is labour intensive . Had cows ( dairy and beef ) heifers and bulls all tied at home and milked cows in byres until the late 70's . Metal posts drop into the sleeves and the posts have gate pins welded to them so you can hang gates either side
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I'd be very wary indeed of constructing cubicles using hurdles or gates. The cubicle metalwork you can buy has been developed to minimise the risk of a beast getting caught / stuck - and even then, we all have to pull a cow back a bit by tractor every now and again! I'd expect broken legs using hurdles.
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I'm not sure whether tie-by-neck stalls are now outlawed but there is certainly a plan to do so.
Old farmers such as BH can argue a good case for them being high welfare - no bullying is the big one - but they are generally frowned upon these days. There is in any case a legal requirement to free the animals twice a day for exercise, and I suspect it's not the easiest job to get them all willingly tied up again afterwards ;)
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When using the byre system we never had a problem getting them back for tying up, what did cause trouble was if one went into the wrong stall, it caused chaos. Cattle love routine.
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The code of welfare as of march 2016 states that cattle in a cow shed need to be let out once per day for exercise , they are very happy to be tied up as Buttermilk says they love routine and no competition for food and space . They are very clean , they have no foot problems , you can individually feed , AI is easy , TB testing easy any vet treatment easy . The demise of the byre was totally a labour thing , 40 cows in a byre was enough for one man but the same man could do 100 in cubicles . All methods have drawbacks Straw Yards work well if you can get cheap straw and better still with a straw chopper , bullying can be a problem and some times a teat can get damaged . Cubicles have to be the right size , the odd animal gets stuck , the odd animal goes in backward , the odd animal refuses to use the cubicle and lies in the passage , cattle can have foot problems ( slurry heal / inter digital dermatitis ) The code of welfare states that passages should be cleaned twice a day ( dairy herds do but not worked with beef cattle that do ) Modern self lockers do not clang as they have noise reduction systems POINTER do you have space to store a lorry load of straw under cover ??
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We left the old cow byre in our stone barn when we converted it to a holiday cottage. It's in a corner, with a low wall about a metre high and long a metre from the wall. There's a 60 cm "scoop" of concrete te full width of it that the cow faced, for feed and water, with cobbles in front of that. A long metal bar sits vertically on the wall, with a chain circle running through it for the cow's neck. A fairly typical desing until quite recently, I believe - There are a couple in the barn acros the lane from us.