Scrape passage

[beardface]

Have a shed going up and plan on putting in a scrape passage. Shed is 50 ft wide with 20 ft bays. Would 20 ft scrape be too wide. Thinking 30 ft of bedding will be ample. Would blow straw across the full width so there's something to stack ge muck with, but bed the back more than the front. Thinking could put a bit of gradient on the scrape so the dung gets worked away from the feed fence. Would make internals a lot easier as 20ft Gates along scrape and 2 15 ft gates on bedded area to split shed a bit. Any thoughts?

 

[Skintagain]

Have a shed going up and plan on putting in a scrape passage. Shed is 50 ft wide with 20 ft bays. Would 20 ft scrape be too wide. Thinking 30 ft of bedding will be ample. Would blow straw across the full width so there's something to stack ge muck with, but bed the back more than the front. Thinking could put a bit of gradient on the scrape so the dung gets worked away from the feed fence. Would make internals a lot easier as 20ft Gates along scrape and 2 15 ft gates on bedded area to split shed a bit. Any thoughts?

Sounds wide to me. I have only ever known is 12ft

 

[Mouser]

Hang 2 12ft gates to close each pen which will then overlap to close cattle onto bedded area for scraping.

 

[AftonShepherd]

If it works for gates etc, why not? You wouldn't need to scrape the full width every time as long as the gates cleared what was left at the front of the bedding.

 

[Haydn Lloyd]

Ours is 12 and find that's bit wide. 15 foot gates part it but only 12 foot concrete.

 

[Stw88]

I would say ideal, scrape the front every day then once a week/ fortnight go in with bucket and take the rough bit off inbetweeen. Rough muck will keep coming forward and not need mucked out wid winter.

 

[beardface]

Thinking a wide passage will give more standing area so cattle might dung more on pass than bedded area.

 

[deleted user 837354]

Might be a good idea to have a gander at some existing units. I have worked on a place with the kind of housing (for beef) your describe but cannot for the life of remember the width of the scrape passage. I used to use a telehandler and bucket to push it out into a heap at one end. It was pretty solid and could be stacked but it was well contained in case any liquid formed from rainfall. One person could do it very easily by simply pushing animals back and locking them behind two gates as others have mentioned.

Straw chopper over the animals backs as they fed meant the straw reached the lying area but some inevitably ended up in the front passage.

Wider scrape passage would make it easier to get a machine into each pen for dunging out though.

 

[Treecreeper]

Now fitting out a 120x40, I was planning to have a 10ft scrape passage to maximise lying area. Pens divided to enable shut back so scraping/bedding is a one man op. I have a wider loafing area in an older shed and find, as above,it's a bit too wide for size of building. Also working on the principle that weaned calves don't need the length behind them

 

[michael N123]

I would say ideal, scrape the front every day then once a week/ fortnight go in with bucket and take the rough bit off inbetweeen. Rough muck will keep coming forward and not need mucked out wid winter.

That’s what I do but without the nice pens and gates just let them out in the yard

 

[HarryB97]

It depends on how you feed your cattle as well. Our pens our 33 foot deep including a 13 foot scrape passage by 40 foot wide. As we feed concentrates once or twice per day alongside ad lib silage depending on the type of stock we need enough feeding space so a smaller bedded area doesn't matter as much as we can't fit as many stock in the pen as we don't feed a tmr thats available all day. I would never build a shed without a scrape passage it makes life so much easier if you work alone to shed out single animals and move them around. Our pens share a drinking trough between two pens which works okay but one of the pens has to go through their scrape gate and walk along the whole length of the pen to get to the trough. I do find that a scrape passage does use a fair bit more straw as there is more concentrated traffic in and out of the bedded area. We have to hire in a compact Avant loader to muck out the bedding area as it's to awkward with our telehandler. I would mark out your proposed design in the yard with road cones and try moving your loader around as if you were mucking out.

 

[shearerlad]

If you want to go 20 feet passage/30feet bedding then in the passage, slope the first 10 from the trough falling away then the 2nd 10 flat. That way the cattle will work the dung down the slope so that you only really have to scrape the flat bit. Working in a similar idea to an Orkney slope

 

[Skintagain]

To be fair if you aren’t putting a heel stone/kerb in to stop the slop and straw mixing the gate lengths make no odds you just shut them back and scrape what you fancy

 

[jamesy]

10ft - 12ft is a handy width for filtering out cattle etc should you need to.

 

[Whitepeak]

We have a 15ft scrape passage, with a handling system at one end. And it's a bit too wide for one man to drive cows up, it's a lot easier with 2 of you unless you keep shutting the dividing gates behind yourself.