The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Cattle => Topic started by: Rosemary on March 11, 2018, 12:19:09 pm
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We have three cows and a bull at the moment. It might be up next winter depending on what we get calf wise this summer. Because we have limited grazing and it's prone to being wet, we house the cattle from 1st November to 1st May or thereabouts.
Previously (and this year) we've loose housed them on straw. About 1/3 of the total concrete area is bedded, and the remaining 2/3 has the water tough, the ring feeder, the licky bucket and loafing space and this is where they get tied up to be fed everyday.
The concrete area is scraped clean every day and the bed area topped up.
But the cows are still dirty and I hate it. I bathed one side of Annie today; I'll do the other half tomorrow.
I'm considering building cubicles for them next year. I've sort of got a a plan in my head of a 4" x 4" framed base filled with sand and topped with rubber mats. That would give a 4" high kerb, which isn't too high for them to step up. I'd put either sawdust or chopped straw as a wee bed topping.
I guess the cubicles have to be as deep as the cattle are long so that they can stand comfortabley but dung off the cubicle. How wide though? It has to be comfy but not wide enough to allow them to turn round.
Dividers made from 4" x 4" timber?
Thoughts and advice welcome.
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Have a read of the materials on the IAE site. Linky (https://iae.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/A4-CUBICLE-BROCHURE-2016-website-1.pdf). When we upgraded the cubicles at ex-BH's, the IAE materials had loads of info about the distances you need according to the size of your beasts.
Well-designed cubicles are wonderful. Badly-designed or -installed cubicles can be extremely dangerous.
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Badly-designed or -installed cubicles can be extremely dangerous.
Yes, that's my concern
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Why don't you just deep litter them and just straw down the dung pats each day, so they always have a clean area to lie on? That way they keep much cleaner, and less work as you just muck out once a year.
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Why don't you just deep litter them and just straw down the dung pats each day, so they always have a clean area to lie on? That way they keep much cleaner, and less work as you just muck out once a year.
Very interested in the responses to this, as this is our plan for our new barn!
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OH has a mentor, a lifelong farmer, and he has suggested that our cattle (which we don't yet have) are deep littered.
It didn't sound very healthy to us but apparently is the preferred method for health and wellbeing.
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Why don't you just deep litter them and just straw down the dung pats each day, so they always have a clean area to lie on? That way they keep much cleaner, and less work as you just muck out once a year.
That's what we currently do. And mucking out by hand once a year is a mammoth task.
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OH has a mentor, a lifelong farmer, and he has suggested that our cattle (which we don't yet have) are deep littered.
It didn't sound very healthy to us but apparently is the preferred method for health and wellbeing.
I can't keep ours clean. The straw area is bedded every day; the concrete area (loafing and feeding) is scraped every day. The cows are dirty. The dairy sector uses cubicles as it keeps the cows cleaner.
The good thing about deep straw is that you get amazing manure - but mucking it out is very hard work unless you have or hire machinery.
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The dairy sector uses cubicles as it keeps the cows cleaner.
Although it does, I think the major driver for cubicles in dairying is to make sure that every cow has a comfortable place to lie down and cud and sleep, because in an open strawed area, the bully cows will dominate the space and the weaker cows will be pushed to the edge. Cows need to spend 8 hours a day sleeping and 8 hours a day cuddling (I think those are the right figures) for optimum milk production, so anything which interferes with a cow's resting will cost milk.
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I can't keep ours clean. The straw area is bedded every day; the concrete area (loafing and feeding) is scraped every day. The cows are dirty.
I know you will have spent time watching them; we all love to watch our cattle! :hugcow: Have you been able to determine why / where they are getting dirty? I'm asking because we are going to build our new barn this year, and do want to use loose housing, so if there are lessons to be learned...! Having been back to Monkton Wyld to chat with Simon about their setup there, we're planning something similar. So the indoors areas will be fully strawed and they'll have access to a loafing yard which will be scraped every day. Simon's cows were spotless...
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OH has a mentor, a lifelong farmer, and he has suggested that our cattle (which we don't yet have) are deep littered.
It didn't sound very healthy to us but apparently is the preferred method for health and wellbeing.
I can't keep ours clean. The straw area is bedded every day; the concrete area (loafing and feeding) is scraped every day. The cows are dirty. The dairy sector uses cubicles as it keeps the cows cleaner.
The good thing about deep straw is that you get amazing manure - but mucking it out is very hard work unless you have or hire machinery.
It seems that round this way they hire a man with machine once a year to do the dirty work.
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Yup, that’s our plan Sally. We’d need him to do the muck spreading anyway
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No one considered deep litter using sawdust , often you don't need to clean out after one winter . Straw beds are easier to keep clean if the cows are on hay/straw as opposed to silage /haylage ,also a hardcore base allows for better drainage than concrete but can be harder to empty come spring . Cubicles took over from loose housing for dairy , because you can get more cows in less space + no straw to buy + less damage to teats from other cows standing on them . Rosemary if you are bedding every day you cows should be spotless ,are some of them lying down not on the straw area ?
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For the avoidance of doubt, I bed them every day and scrape the concrete and yes, they are filthy. They obvioulsy dung a lot more frequently than I can cover up - if I did, the bed would be to the ceiling and I wouldn't have time to do anything else than cover up cow dung.
Maybe they're just particularly mucky buggers. Seriously considering putting the pressure washer on them.
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No one considered deep litter using sawdust , often you don't need to clean out after one winter .
I use teh shed for other things when the cattle go out.
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I'm asking because we are going to build our new barn this year, and do want to use loose housing, so if there are lessons to be learned...! Having been back to Monkton Wyld to chat with Simon about their setup there, we're planning something similar. So the indoors areas will be fully strawed and they'll have access to a loafing yard which will be scraped every day. Simon's cows were spotless...
I'll be interested to know how they do it then. I wonder whether access to an outside loafing area woudl help - ours clean up really quickly once they're out in the rain.
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Out side area's plus inside lying area have a tendancy to use more straw as the cows get wet and come inside and make it damp . Could you use sawdust on the cow pats to dry them up , some people say that mixing straw and sawdust /shavings makes a dryer bed
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I look after beef cattle for someone who has bedded area at the back and cleaned maybe once a week at the front and the cows are dry and clean.
I wonder if you not using enough straw?
I put in a round bale every few days so plenty of thick straw. If you bed it well before it gets wet/muck again then it stays dryer.
Also wheat straw definitely works better as I bed less often when on wheat.
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I wonder if you not using enough straw?
I put in a round bale every few days so plenty of thick straw. If you bed it well before it gets wet/muck again then it stays dryer.
How big an area for how many cattle? If I put a round bale in every few days, their heads woudl be banging of the roof by now :)
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Obviously you don’t need a big bale often for just a few, but the size of their straw area needs to be big enough...if I think I’ll get a pic of the set up.
What I mean is to keep enough bedding in so it doesn’t get mucky, if the straw is always dry then the cattle can’t get dirty!
Cubicles can be great but there is always one that gets itself stuck somehow and extracting a stuck cow from metal cubicles is not fun for either party!
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I find the bigger the space the cleaner they are in sheds. I have six dexters staying with me and they need about a round bale a week, they are on hay in a ring feeder so the dung is quite solid and they are very clean and lie down a lot.
We have a small dexter tractor and at the end of the winter, all the muck is shoved out and we get a grab away lorry to take it a way. I just have to do the corners by fork and barrow. I can not stand waiting for a farmer to turn up as and when, the grab company does muck professionally within a day.
I also deep litter ponies in another shed, the manure drops and compacts over the winter, so its never that deep. I get through a round bale of straw every two weeks, with five ponies.
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Out side area's plus inside lying area have a tendancy to use more straw as the cows get wet and come inside and make it damp . Could you use sawdust on the cow pats to dry them up , some people say that mixing straw and sawdust /shavings makes a dryer bed
Oh, that's an interesting idea. I wasn't taken by the idea of bedding them on sawdust as I want the straw to be part of their diet - eat a third, lie on a third, dung on a third sort of thing. But covering dung with sawdust then a layer of straw on top sounds interesting.
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Could you use sawdust on the cow pats to dry them up , some people say that mixing straw and sawdust /shavings makes a dryer bed
Hmm, would incorporating shavings / sawdust make it less good manure?
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The advice for shavings and sawdust is to compost it for a while , very straw rich manure also benefits from composting .
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Deep bed the whole area and then get someone in to clear it out once the cows have been turned out
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After doing a bit of reading about cubicles and welfare, that plan has been abandoned. Info on AHDB indicates that lameness and leg injuries are more prevalent in cubicles than straw courts (although mastitis was lower.)
Thinking about putting down rubber matting and a light topping of straw to be cleaned daily.
If you don't put down a lot of straw, it's not very comfy for them but my pony had mats like this and seemed to do fine.
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Also wheat straw definitely works better as I bed less often when on wheat.
One of the reasons it’ll last longer is they’ll eat fresh barley straw but seem to like wheat straw less. Ex-BH regarded the straw as part of their diet, so spread fresh every day to give them some to munch and always a clean bed.
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Sorry if i have missed it but what are you feeding them on Rosemary? We fatten cattle and it is important to keep them clean so use a lot of straw. This year has been difficult as the silage we made is so wet and what goes in must come out so the dung is very loose . We bed them every day with barley straw and some of the really hairy types are like armadillos with dung sticking to there bellies. The straw bed can be very warm and a hairy beast in a shed might want to lie in the shitty bit at the feeder cause it's cooler.
As has been said before stocking density is also important more bums = more dung, for us a couple less in a pen can make all the difference.
Very limited experience of cubicles back to student days but they were not very good for cows with calves. the calves needed a bedded creep area. And cows were not the cleanest.
Sand cubicles seem to be the best for cow comfort, would guess deep sand, sawdust or wood chip would be similar.
Sorry i have waffled on but not helped you much,
Feed dry feeds hay or straw, give as much space as you can, bed as often as you can but you know all this.
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If using sand, I think I read that it's important to get the right sort of sand, as some sands can irritate the udder. Can't remember more details than that, I'm afraid.
And yes, any cubicles with calves running free will be soiled as the calves pee and poo in the cubicles.
I used to scrape out behind the Jerseys twice a day, or there was so much poo in the passage, their feet were dirty and then their udders were lying against the dirty feet. Less of a problem with a suckler who's getting her udder cleaned by her calf suckling frequently.