Suckler cows on straw bedded cubicles.

[Hilly]

For me the whole idea of cubicals is to cut out straw 100% , I used to find the problems with straw were first the chopper was a bag of shyt , secondly they eat it before they rake it out the cubical and lie on it in passage then it blocked up slurry system even with short chop kit .

 

[davidroberts30]

Is it a slatted scrape pass you have? Cows here on dry silage 2kg straw, dung is quite stiff, can load with bucket or fork into the spreader/trailer. What sort of mats are best to go for, don't want anything too fancy, was thinking a roll before installing cubicles. Have you any pictures of your set up?

No slats ,scrape to a lagoon
Mine are beef finishers so on barley,beet and good silage
Just plain rubber mats on concrete base covered in a layer of chopped straw every morning

 

[serf]

A bit of both, the cubicles are only just over 6 ft long and a bit over 3 ft wide, unfortunately scrape pass is only 9ft wide so basically the shed is too small! When the new shed goes up the plan is to convert the old one to a handling system and some bull pens.

Bit snookered then,
seems like your making best use of pen with heifers to me

 

[tommytractor]

For me the whole idea of cubicals is to cut out straw 100% , I used to find the problems with straw were first the chopper was a bag of shyt , secondly they eat it before they rake it out the cubical and lie on it in passage then it blocked up slurry system even with short chop kit .

Definitely see your point, never had slurry here, straw used to work ok in our system just the size of my cubicles is my problem. My new shed would ideally need to hold 100 cows so the cost of installing slurry storage etc worries me. Have just about enough straw to not need to buy in.

 

[tommytractor]

Bit snookered then,
seems like your making best use of pen with heifers to me

Yes, it does the job for them ,they are pretty clean too. Need to carefully plan the next one.

 

[Hilly]

Definitely see your point, never had slurry here, straw used to work ok in our system just the size of my cubicles is my problem. My new shed would ideally need to hold 100 cows so the cost of installing slurry storage etc worries me. Have just about enough straw to not need to buy in.

I see , 16’ seems to be favoured size for head to heads these days .

 

[tommytractor]

I see , 16’ seems to be favoured size for head to heads these days .

yeh, need to get it right, at least the new type cubicles can slide along to play with the width a bit unlike the ones I have now.

 

[Hilly]

yeh, need to get it right, at least the new type cubicles can slide along to play with the width a bit unlike the ones I have now.

I read somewhere the width is no issue it’s length is the big one , bit longer you can shorten but dry hard to make bigger .

 

[tommytractor]

I read somewhere the width is no issue it’s length is the big one , bit longer you can shorten but dry hard to make bigger .

Yes, agree with that. Shed going to be 50ft wide so should have room for full size plus reasonable scape and feed pass.

 

[JCB_JCR]

Our bodge up of a cubicle shed with creep area for calves. Just put 1st few freshly calved cows and calves in this morning. Creep gate has about 2 ft gap with adjustable horizontal bar and gate in it. Got 30 cubicles but best if kept below 25 cows for cleanliness. We scrape into a weeping wall store so don't bother with bedding in cubicles. Seams to work well and saves a lot of straw. Got a bigger creep gate in main yard for larger calves.

 

[tommytractor]

View attachment 945974
Our bodge up of a cubicle shed with creep area for calves. Just put 1st few freshly calved cows and calves in this morning. Creep gate has about 2 ft gap with adjustable horizontal bar and gate in it. Got 30 cubicles but best if kept below 25 cows for cleanliness. We scrape into a weeping wall store so don't bother with bedding in cubicles. Seams to work well and saves a lot of straw. Got a bigger creep gate in main yard for larger calves.

Fair bit of nifty joinery work in those cubicles, never seen ones like that before, built to last! Nice and clean looking. Is that some sort of mat in the beds?

 

[JCB_JCR]

Cubicles are from a shed we dismantled for the materials where the cubicles were part of the shed frame - like these Cow kennels - they are probably 30 years old.
We cut them off at ground level and concreted in the better ones. But they are falling apart and we keep on having to screw new bits of timber back on as the cows break bits.
Yes rubber mats from the same shed on concrete base.

 

[dannewhouse]

Ever thought of a fully slatted shed with no cubicles?
Cubicles make the whole job just so Deere because you need so much space.

Ideally I don't think calves are best with cows on slats but a good straw runback for calves be grand.

Put slat mats on.

Just as a comparison your 50ft shed let's just say 60ft long and ignore any cross passages.
You would have 18 cubicles in length X3 rows = 54 cubicles.
If it was 16ft slats either side of centre feed it would hold 80 cows.
You have calf areas to sort on either comparison.

The only way the cubicles stack up is if you ignore slurry storage but tbh I think you will be forced to get something sorted within a few years

 

[simmy_bull]

Ever thought of a fully slatted shed with no cubicles?
Cubicles make the whole job just so Deere because you need so much space.

Ideally I don't think calves are best with cows on slats but a good straw runback for calves be grand.

Put slat mats on.

Just as a comparison your 50ft shed let's just say 60ft long and ignore any cross passages.
You would have 18 cubicles in length X3 rows = 54 cubicles.
If it was 16ft slats either side of centre feed it would hold 80 cows.
You have calf areas to sort on either comparison.

The only way the cubicles stack up is if you ignore slurry storage but tbh I think you will be forced to get something sorted within a few years

Cubicle set up takes much less room than loose housing though surely? Which is what many will be comparing.

I took cubicles out of a shedto make it loose housing. Big mistake. Far more bedding and not nearly as many animals able to be kept in there

 

[dannewhouse]

Cubicle set up takes much less room than loose housing though surely? Which is what many will be comparing.

I took cubicles out of a shedto make it loose housing. Big mistake. Far more bedding and not nearly as many animals able to be kept in there

When I have ever calculated it before, no, this is mainly because I have used larger cubicle measurements and wide passages. But in this example I would say 54 cows in a 50x60 be about right loose housed, I have a 50ft building in 30ft pens and put 25-30 per pen, I notice a difference putting them last few in though.

 

[Gulli]

We have cubicles here of various types, some are straight into concrete, some are on thin rubber mats and we have some on mattresses that we put in last year to replace some broken ones, all straw bedded, the cows much prefer the mattresses and the beds stay cleaner on them but the younger animals are fine on the concrete
Saves us a massive amount of straw compared to straw yards, muck is mostly dependant on what you feed them and the weather but we have very little slurry to deal with.
Some cows just won't lie in whatever you do so they end up in a straw yard. Works well for us

 

[tommytractor]

Ever thought of a fully slatted shed with no cubicles?
Cubicles make the whole job just so Deere because you need so much space.

Ideally I don't think calves are best with cows on slats but a good straw runback for calves be grand.

Put slat mats on.

Just as a comparison your 50ft shed let's just say 60ft long and ignore any cross passages.
You would have 18 cubicles in length X3 rows = 54 cubicles.
If it was 16ft slats either side of centre feed it would hold 80 cows.
You have calf areas to sort on either comparison.

The only way the cubicles stack up is if you ignore slurry storage but tbh I think you will be forced to get something sorted within a few years

Yes, I think slats have come a long way with the invention of the stat mats, just the cost of slurry storage is putting me off going with slurry, all dung on the farm is dry dung currently and it works well with my cropping rotation. The cubicle shed I have has worked well in the past on straw but is just too small now and the shed dimensions limit the options for modifying it. I will put up a drawing of what i'm planning.

 

[tommytractor]

We have cubicles here of various types, some are straight into concrete, some are on thin rubber mats and we have some on mattresses that we put in last year to replace some broken ones, all straw bedded, the cows much prefer the mattresses and the beds stay cleaner on them but the younger animals are fine on the concrete
Saves us a massive amount of straw compared to straw yards, muck is mostly dependant on what you feed them and the weather but we have very little slurry to deal with.
Some cows just won't lie in whatever you do so they end up in a straw yard. Works well for us

Cubicle set up takes much less room than loose housing though surely? Which is what many will be comparing.

I took cubicles out of a shedto make it loose housing. Big mistake. Far more bedding and not nearly as many animals able to be kept in there

Yes, I agree, we removed cubicles from the identical shed to the one in my pictures to make it into a loose bedded shed and although it's handy for calving etc, it takes way too much straw to keep clean for the amount of cows it can hold.

 

[tommytractor]

We have cubicles here of various types, some are straight into concrete, some are on thin rubber mats and we have some on mattresses that we put in last year to replace some broken ones, all straw bedded, the cows much prefer the mattresses and the beds stay cleaner on them but the younger animals are fine on the concrete
Saves us a massive amount of straw compared to straw yards, muck is mostly dependant on what you feed them and the weather but we have very little slurry to deal with.
Some cows just won't lie in whatever you do so they end up in a straw yard. Works well for us

Have you got any pictures of your cubicle set up Gulli?

 

[tommytractor]

Does anyone have any pictures of their suckler cows housed in cubicles bedded with straw?
Have a shed like this already but it was designed in the 70's when we would of had 500kg angus cows and the cubicles are too small for our 700kg simmentals nowadays.
Try to be self sufficient with straw and our other loose bedded cattle courts use a lot of bedding, so like the idea of putting up a large cubicle shed.
Don't have a slurry system and would like to avoid going down that road.
Wondered if putting in a cheap rubber roll of mat in the cubicles as well as a small amount of straw to thicken the dung would work?
Also any designs for a calf creep would be helpful.
Shed is to house autumn calving cows with their calves.
The pictures are of my current shed that I only manage to house yearling replacement heifers in.
Thanks
TomView attachment 945547View attachment 945549View attachment 945550View attachment 945552

This is the general idea of what i'm planning, two of these buildings facing each other. Although this drawing is smaller than the length i'm now aiming at, so there will be a few more cubicles.