Dave6170
Member
- Location
- Watten, caithness
suckler shed design number 2
- Thread starter Jonny B88
- Start date
GSB
Member
- Location
- scottish borders
12ft scrape passage and just our own farm hardcore rolled down. Plenty of room for 2 way traffic when feeding with 12ft passage. Bedding machine JUST gets to the back of the building if there's no wind!!
Dave6170
Member
- Location
- Watten, caithness
How is it divided up? 2 bays per pen? 40ft? Im not sure how ill split ours up. Want to have a section for calves then use it all for cows after weaning.
GSB
Member
- Location
- scottish borders
60ft pens at the moment we just put in cal
3 bay pens 60ft. We put a creep feeder over the wall at the moment but looking at doing something more permanent soon.
Attachments
Dave6170
Member
- Location
- Watten, caithness
What do others do for water in sheds with canterlevers and scrapes like above? Not sure what to do in our new build.
GSB
Member
- Location
- scottish borders
Our troughs (moore concrete) are along the back wall of the bedded area. Mabye better built into feed trough or in the wall of the scrape passage to reduce straw usage
- Location
- Bedfordshire
I've got these troughs, but 6' iirc. so a 12' gate next to it, close off the scrape passage and make up the 20' bay
Dave6170
Member
- Location
- Watten, caithness
They look good but expensive!
- Location
- Bedfordshire
They are dear, but I couldn't find a cheaper option, we've done it at home with concrete panels and standard troughs, but it works out the same with extra labour.
I wouldn't put a trough in without tipping or a bung in the bottom.
dannewhouse
Member
- Location
- huddersfield
we have a similar shed just over 45ft wide the scrape passage is roughly 15ft and the bedding 30ft and we have it divided off every 30ft the bedding bit by panels (2 x 1m) and the scrape passage by double gates. they are allowed access to feed 24/7. mine use a bale of straw per pen ie 30ft square with 25-28 big suckler cows in. as for the scrape passage I know mine drag a little straw but not that much and a little feed through diagonal barriers but no way could I scrape it its a tractor bucket job every month (which is how I want it) I do feed hayladge rather than silage but I still don't think it would scrape easy plus its a daily job then!
Photos: The red oxide posts lift out and there it 2 gates hung per blue post to allow cattle to be locked on or off bedding. the water troughs are at the back and touch wood ive had no grief (better not go up to wet bedding now!) we used to have a shed with the equivalent of water troughs by the gate hinges but cows knocked hell out of them even with steels around etc
10" completely open ridge and with cattle in the shed you don't get a drop of rain on you! more blows under the back Yorkshire boarding?
Best investment ever for 100 suckler cows beats pokey holes pneumonia struggling with tractor etc!
Forever Fendt
Member
- Location
- Derbyshire
is there a cap on the ridge over the rafters to stop the rain on the steel
dannewhouse
Member
- Location
- huddersfield
not currently, the idea is to put a cap over every station but that's the problem with doing the building yourself the finishing touches take longer than the build because "we can manage without" its currently missing barge boards and the 9 ridge caps but I have planning passed to extend it in length so it only worth putting one ends caps on any way
Forever Fendt
Member
- Location
- Derbyshire
put some caps over the ridge and cover each rafter ,even if they are pressed from galv sheet if the tiers of fiber cement don't line up the top purlins will rot fast where they are sat on the steel, is it a new shed or have you made it yourself
dannewhouse
Member
- Location
- huddersfield
its a 60ft second hand building that was "chopped and changed" the top purlins were moved down to create a good over hang of cement sheet, the side nearest the cantilever was cut off the rafter and welded on top of the leg as a 60ft wide shed would hold more animals than I could feed across the front so made more sense to do what we did. I have the ridge caps just not the time to put them up! and the corrugations are inline I took time to get that right when fitting sheets.
Anyone has a 60ft building they would like to sell im interested! we will bob and take it down and purchase it!
I agree it wont do the purlins any good but I haven't seen any wet on them when it rains would be better done though!
Anyone has a 60ft building they would like to sell im interested! we will bob and take it down and purchase it!
I agree it wont do the purlins any good but I haven't seen any wet on them when it rains would be better done though!
- Location
- Carmarthenshire, West Wales
why not have suckler cows in a cubicle shed (with a strawed creep area for the calves), and some people put the newly calved cows back into the cubicle shed after 3 days. Saves money on straw.
Dave6170
Member
- Location
- Watten, caithness
When i put water into our new shed, do you have to have a header tank? Are they to stop contamination? Was thinking i could run a pipe in the concrete along the feed barrier the whole length of the building and t in drinkers up the stanchions? Fit a one way valve to stop contamination.
Forever Fendt
Member
- Location
- Derbyshire
i would have thought no need for a header tank if you have enough water pressure
dannewhouse
Member
- Location
- huddersfield
I thought about a system using a header tank (a big big tank) so that I could rainwater harvest ie set the tank as high as possible to allow some pressure down to the troughs let the down pipe feed into the tank and make sure theres a good overflow going to a drain. fit a mains ballcock to fill the tank roughly 8" from bottom (make sure ballcock is fully sealed around and put a non return valve in) this would mean I could run on rainwater but when it didn't rain I wouldn't have to worry
when I priced it up / calculated it out from the proper guidance I need a massive tank something like 8000 L to get a decent saving on 100 cows in a 120ft x 60ft shed
interesting I also calculated for my opposite end down pipe if I converted it to 32mm water pipe 1m of head pressure would carry sufficient water for the peak storm (I cant remember if I used a 1s per year or like a 10 year worst to calc it) ie if my eaves was 6m and the top of my tank was 5m it would be sufficient. converting the downpipe to water pipe was so that I could put it underground and back up in to the tank but the tank cost seemed to take any saving as its not much saving any way plus you will need a good steel frame to hold a tank so big cant just swing it off a building leg
when I priced it up / calculated it out from the proper guidance I need a massive tank something like 8000 L to get a decent saving on 100 cows in a 120ft x 60ft shed
interesting I also calculated for my opposite end down pipe if I converted it to 32mm water pipe 1m of head pressure would carry sufficient water for the peak storm (I cant remember if I used a 1s per year or like a 10 year worst to calc it) ie if my eaves was 6m and the top of my tank was 5m it would be sufficient. converting the downpipe to water pipe was so that I could put it underground and back up in to the tank but the tank cost seemed to take any saving as its not much saving any way plus you will need a good steel frame to hold a tank so big cant just swing it off a building leg