Cattle Shed Design

[Seth470]

Whats the best design for the inside of an 120ft by 40ft shed with a feed rail on the one side and possibly considering a scrape passage.

Also it needs to be multi purpose so it can be used to house bales.
Also the best placements for water troughs to be easily mucked out and cleaned.

 

[Hard Graft]

how do you feed
what age and type of cattle are you working with
how will you access it end or front
and how often you need to work the cattle.
As work with a couple and will be building one shortly hopefully 120 by 60 or 70
but if you are wanting a multi purpose shed I would look at a deeper shed as your scrape passage to be separate from the beded area and 40’ is quite narroW for today

 

[Seth470]

Diet feeding and Straw blower for bedding
Growing cattle from about 3 months to finish and also housing a herd of pedigree cattle.
Feed Barriers on the front so its easy to access them and doors on the 40ft edge.
Would want to be weighing the cattle every month plus TB testing etc.

 

[Sharpy]

Drinking bowls in the feed barrier, cattle operated rather than self fill so no stagnant water, easily checked, cheaper than troughs and with 5 or 6 you can be flexible with pen sizes and layout.

 

[Seth470]

Drinking bowls in the feed barrier, cattle operated rather than self fill so no stagnant water, easily checked, cheaper than troughs and with 5 or 6 you can be flexible with pen sizes and layout.

what if the feed barrier could open would it not be able to?

 

[Pan mixer]

Here is mine, I would cut the scrape passage down from 14 to 12 feet if I was doing it again.

Tip up troughs in the division between front and back, they never get stale and I only have to clean them if I get some poop in them when mucking out, the cattle keep them clean.

Feed bunk is 8 inches higher than the scrape floor, next time I may leave the top of the bunk at 4 feet but slope those panels to cut the bottom to 3 feet.

I have any age of cattle in there from 8 month calves to bulls and cows.

 

[mo!]

We have a 120x40 with a 5'overhang on the feed side. It's too narrow, 50 or even 60 would have been better. You don't need the full length for feeding on TMR and the blower will easily throw it that far on a still day. We pen up when its windy. We have 80 600kg+ finishers in one batch, fence in the middle so we can muck/scrape regularly with minimal disruption. La Buvette Polystall Plus troughs at the back.

 

[Sharpy]

what if the feed barrier could open would it not be able to?

Use hydraulic hose as the flexible pipe?

 

[M-J-G]

40ft is an awkward size, mainly because you'll fit a lot more cattle in the pen than you'll manage to feed.
It's fine if you aren't bothered about making maximum use of the bedded area or if you are feeding ad-lib and cattle don't need to all feed at once you can fill the pen more.
You do have the benefit of bedding lasting longer.

The setup I was involved in the design of are 30ft x 20ft with the front 12ft as a scrape passage. 8 cows can lay the pen and they can all feed at once.

We put drinkers at the back of the scrape area so the don't fill with straw from the bedder and they are safe from machines.
I wouldn't put drinkers at the feed barrier as they tend to be in the way and it means you cannot scrape the feed passage mechanically without risking damaging them.

 

[Optimus]

Our water drinkers are in the feed trough out of the way. Sheds are 120 x 50.with a 10ft scrape passage

 

[roscoe erf]

Whats the best design for the inside of an 120ft by 40ft shed with a feed rail on the one side and possibly considering a scrape passage.

Also it needs to be multi purpose so it can be used to house bales.
Also the best placements for water troughs to be easily mucked out and cleaned.

water troughs outside feed barrier drop posts and gates inside so easily removed thats how we did ours so its multipurpose

 

[roscoe erf]

what if the feed barrier could open would it not be able to?

all mine open but obviously where the water is you'd need to remove trough

 

[milkloss]

40ft is an awkward size, mainly because you'll fit a lot more cattle in the pen than you'll manage to feed.

good point.

 

[M-J-G]

Personally I'd avoid opening barriers, especially for cows as they tend to be weaker.
Of you're putting in a scrape passage you can access the whole shed without opening the feed barrier.

As for storing bales we just make the bale size suit the width of the shed it's going to be stored in.
We have one shed with sheep pens that are 15ft wide so I make squares 7ft odds and of its rounds going in there we make them just under 5ft.
Plus if you make the shed a bit higher it will make up for a few gates, barriers and drinkers being left in place and save the bother of having to set things up every year.

 

[aled1590]

Just converted 2 side by side sheep sheds to hold cattle so no choice with the dimensions but the cows have 12ft scrape and nearly 18ft bed (2 15ft bays) cows seem happy enough in there new lodgings. It has a 15ft central passage and exactly same other side (not quite finished) Initial plan was to build a new 120 x 50 with cantilever to feed under but couldn’t make the sums stack up really