Slatted shed for 100 cows
- Thread starter valtraman
- Start date
- Location
- Northumberland
Cheap & slats are 2 words not seen in the same sentence 
- but with current price & availability of straw very pleased we took this option
Ours (for dairy cows ) are constructed like this, but lots of other options
- but with current price & availability of straw very pleased we took this optionOurs (for dairy cows ) are constructed like this, but lots of other options
john432
Member
- Location
- Carmarthenshire
A new setup for suckler cows? Really? Have you done any costings? It's nearly 30 years since I built a slatted floor cubicle/ feeling area shed for my sucklers...slats are great,but with hindsight.. I should have built a" normal" cubicle shed and an adjoining roofed slurry pit..it would have housed more animals for the money..
Save your money. Slatted floor equals two floors plus beams and pillars.
Concrete is north of £130/cube
Plus suckler sh!t is likely to be quite a bit thicker than dairy slurry so you may have extraction problems unless you can introduce water and stir
I am currently housing them in cubicle sheds built in 1980 as a dairy setup. Old roofs are about done & quite a lot won’t lie in cubicles so thinking demolishing the lot & put in a slatted shed. My sucklers are actually fairly profitable to our business. Every farm is different.
Adding water no problem as silage pit run off will go into it
To answer your original query, this is RT compliant re space
And reading that, you cannot keep the cows exclusively on slats with providing a solid lying area
And reading that, you cannot keep the cows exclusively on slats with providing a solid lying area
Ideally I have thought about in past digging out scrape channels & put slats in them then they can choose to lie in cubicles or on slats but roofs are low there just wouldn’t be the room for a digger to work
- Location
- sw scotland
QMS standards don't like cows (and especially calves) on slats. Plenty do it at least for some of the winter as keeping cows clean on straw is expensive.
Can you adapt your existing setup to a hybrid model as you will save a lot on concrete and metal. We have old dairy cubicles for 80 scraped into a slatted tank for the last 20 yards of the single scrape passage with e big bedded creep area for calves. Also another newer shed for 45 with 2 parallel scrape passages, single cubicles along one side and double in the centre into a 25000 slatted tank running across one end. It needs almost emptied twice so around 60,000 gallons over a winter but will add another 15000 gallons effluent for mixing. Shed is 45 feet across by 80 long feeding from one side.
The saving on straw annually is thousands, slurry a lot more flexible than muck on a grassland farm but you also have to remember the acres saved by avoiding out-wintering.
Problem is I just have no where to create a creep area for calves so end up weaning them off mothers too early in my opinion & putting calves in other straw bedded sheds elsewhere on steading but too far away from cubicles to link . I have almost 2 steadings , cubicles being the old original one & modern straw bedded sheds further up yard .
sheepwise
Member
- Location
- SW Scotland
If you are going to do the job then do it right from the start as in a few years you won't regret it. Just typical of this forum that someone comes on asking a genuine question and looking for advice only to be told by the merchants of doom not to do it as it is economically impossible. Only you know your own business and what your aims are. We invested heavily in slatted sheds 10 years ago and did wonder at the time if it was justifiable. With the value of cattle now and the price of straw and the value of slurry against expensive fertiliser we now realise how good an investment these sheds were. They definitely give us a competitive advantage over other wintering systems'
Are you talking about housing cows with spring/summer born calves? Depends on prevailing wind/shelter situation but the cheapest option is to build a shed over a rectangular tank and feed along outside of both long sides under an overhang. No wasted space with a feed passage then. A shed 140' by 50' would give you 25' deep pens to give calves room to move among their mothers and allow all cows to feed at once. You would still have room to shut off a pen either end to creep calves into. Even if cows are penned in separate batches as long as you have creep gates between all pens the calves will soon learn to move through other pens to reach the creep area. Do the job right and put comfort mats down on the whole creep area and the back 20' of the cow pens which will keep FA happy and give health benefits. Will be a fair investment but you won't regret it when you only need 1 hour a day to attend to your whole herd which hopefully will be performing well.
Are you talking about housing cows with spring/summer born calves? Depends on prevailing wind/shelter situation but the cheapest option is to build a shed over a rectangular tank and feed along outside of both long sides under an overhang. No wasted space with a feed passage then. A shed 140' by 50' would give you 25' deep pens to give calves room to move among their mothers and allow all cows to feed at once. You would still have room to shut off a pen either end to creep calves into. Even if cows are penned in separate batches as long as you have creep gates between all pens the calves will soon learn to move through other pens to reach the creep area. Do the job right and put comfort mats down on the whole creep area and the back 20' of the cow pens which will keep FA happy and give health benefits. Will be a fair investment but you won't regret it when you only need 1 hour a day to attend to your whole herd which hopefully will be performing well.
- Location
- Buxton, Derbyshire
Not really answering your original question but I'm renovating an 1970s/80s built dairy building for sucklers.
I've used the adjacent collecting yard as a creep area.
Cubicles I've fitted rubber mats. And also fitting new divisions at an angle (approx 45°) to increase lunging space, to allow bigger cows to lie down.
I'd love to put a big new shed up, but the situation ATM means I have to make do and mend.
Outdoor cubicles would be ideal for sucklers
- Location
- SW Scotland
The cost of storing and spreading all the extra effluent would probably pay for the roof.
SolwayFarmer
Member
20ft bays with a 15ft slat. So pen would be 300sqft , depends on size of cow and age of calf as to how many that would hold. Then a straw pen to the rear of each pen. I’d put a passageway in between the slatted area and the straw pen so that could can easily move cattle in and out of pens and somewhere handy to walk to check stock, load etc. or to hold calves when you’re my mucking out their pens. Make it as airy as possible if the site isn’t too exposed then just a roof with a decent cantilever either side. Could feed cows down one side then give the calves a different ration down the other side.
Possibly even use the shed for calving if it’s flexible enough, draw out the calving cows into the straw Definitely fit slat mats, the green ones not the black rubber one. Make it as flexible as possible.
As for the tank go as deep as you can and probably shuttered concrete will be as economic as precast.
Will be expansive but long term labour savings etc
Possibly even use the shed for calving if it’s flexible enough, draw out the calving cows into the straw Definitely fit slat mats, the green ones not the black rubber one. Make it as flexible as possible.
As for the tank go as deep as you can and probably shuttered concrete will be as economic as precast.
Will be expansive but long term labour savings etc
There is 80 cubicles here. Only 10ft space is open. Cheap as chips. Even cheaper if you use used slats as the beds
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