Slatted shed costings

Meic

Member
Location
North Wales
Does anyone have a rough idea how much it would cost to dig out just the pit for the slats. currently costing out a new slated shed with another shed put on to its side as loose housing for the bulls and heifers. the slated tank would be 100ft by 55ft. Cheers
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
that's 30.5m x 17m x 3m deep? = 1555 m3 I would work on 2 ton/m3 even though it is supposed to be 1.8 but always works out that way due to lorrys not full etc.

so that's 3110 ton? I would expect you to load 5 lorries each doing 5 load on a sensible round trip so 500 ton per day. you may well get more than that depends how easy the site and everything else is.
£300 per day for digger+man
£500-600 for 8 wheelers per day
I think its £40 per load to tip

so I'm at: 2100+17600+6400 = 26100

I would recommend finding a bad shaped field or valley and filling it in but get 2/3 moxy tippers do not lake about with tractor and trailers! and a 20t + 360 + possibly a bulldozer for levelling/scraping topsoil back
 

Meic

Member
Location
North Wales
Cheers! We would keep all the soil as we would use some of it to build a new hedge at the end of the yard and as you said we have a field that we could use to dump and level the rest of it
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
conc alone to make the pit
@ 400 thick walls 150 floor as a guess
floor slab 15 thick = 80 cube £6400
perimeter wall 30.5+17+30.5+17 x 3m x.4 = 114 cube £9120
internal walls to mount slats on? 30.5m x 3m x .4 =36.6cube x3 walls = 146 cube £11712
£27,232

plus the excavation above £26100

= £53,332
and I still think I'm short ie no labour or rebar for slab no slats allowed yet
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
I'm very interested in this topic as I debate it a lot its a big investment but ive never compared it to how much ££ I could save on straw. umbilical is very easy for near to land but is slurry ideal for away land or box much better all arable land any way.

my view is always I could put the money to another shed
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
what is the biggest slat they do?
I would ideally be spanning 34ft 10.4m obviously I need 1 wall so slats 17ft (5.2m) any idea of cost? I'm only doing a rough comparison to try and work out a return on investment.

how deep do tanks need to be to hold a full years slurry happily or how many m3 per cow space might be better?
cheaper to be deeper 1st time than always regretting it.
 

Meic

Member
Location
North Wales
Hmm I didn't think of the wall in the middle! Sounds expensive and thats only for the concrete and digging would need sheds one @ 100x55 and another stuck to it @100x95. Was thinking of going the route like the dairy just put some cubicles in and put a slurry tower in but dont know if towers are dearer or not?
There's alot to think about now especially with brexit looming, you want to become more labour efficient but you dont want to put yourself in a financial hole [emoji848]
 

Half Pipe

Member
does anyone know how the extra flexing of slats when driven over affects life span?
especially with increasing weights of machinery and wider slats allowing for weight to be further from supported edges
 

Jonny B88

Member
Location
ballykelly. NI
Tank here 108ft x 26ft. Myself on a tractor and 10t dump trailer and a 13t track machine plus driver. 1 day to strip top soil and 2 days to dig out tank. Site was sloping but dont think we could have done it any cheaper. Dumping material around tank to be reused to build up around it
 

dannewhouse

Member
Location
huddersfield
I would think the under slat tank is cheaper than a tower plus you have to have a pump for a tower which don't last forever. easier to get out of a pit but maybe not as easy to stir.

in your shed would you be looking to house 150 cattle? with a bit of feeding room away from the slats.
I reckon you would use 600 4ft rounds in a 150 day winter at £15 per bale that's £9000 straw per year 10 years would be 90k so would it quite be a 10 year return with a bit of interest etc? maybe not with price of slats + labour
 

Meic

Member
Location
North Wales
That was the thing i was thinking of with the tower! We have one slatted shed now but is about 17 ishh years old but the tank is wider than the shed so nice and easy to stirr we just have a lid so just remove that with the tractor and put the stirrer in.
Wel yes on my calculations i thought 150 on the slats so the cows. Then there would be room for 150 on straw. I know that alot of farmers in Ireland have gone down the slats every where root havent they!? But they might be right, with straw the prices they are this year it's alot of saving, but i wouldn't like really young stock on slats like weanlings, dont think they would do as well would they
 

Half Pipe

Member
That was the thing i was thinking of with the tower! We have one slatted shed now but is about 17 ishh years old but the tank is wider than the shed so nice and easy to stirr we just have a lid so just remove that with the tractor and put the stirrer in.
Wel yes on my calculations i thought 150 on the slats so the cows. Then there would be room for 150 on straw. I know that alot of farmers in Ireland have gone down the slats every where root havent they!? But they might be right, with straw the prices they are this year it's alot of saving, but i wouldn't like really young stock on slats like weanlings, dont think they would do as well would they
that's when the comfort slat mats come in to there own
 

Meic

Member
Location
North Wales
Hopefully we will have some in by next year a man from "easyfix" is coming round on Monday to give us a quote, did try some bull beef on just the slats a couple of years ago but took them off it after about 2-3 weeks as they weren't gaining like we would have liked. Hopefull they would do loads better with the matts??
 

Meic

Member
Location
North Wales
Must be better for them than sitting on just bloody concrete [emoji23] we have cubicles at the back of ours but isnt enough for them all so hopefully put some rubber down then we can pack abit more in, atm we put around 25 ish cattle on 12ft x 45ft with the cubicles running the length. Push it to 30 with mats?
 

zyklon

Member
Livestock Farmer
conc alone to make the pit
@ 400 thick walls 150 floor as a guess
floor slab 15 thick = 80 cube £6400
perimeter wall 30.5+17+30.5+17 x 3m x.4 = 114 cube £9120
internal walls to mount slats on? 30.5m x 3m x .4 =36.6cube x3 walls = 146 cube £11712
£27,232

plus the excavation above £26100

= £53,332
and I still think I'm short ie no labour or rebar for slab no slats allowed yet

£26100 for digging/preparing site for shuttering? I'm I missing something?
 

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