- Location
- Scottish Borders
Looks a proper job that ! Your cows should be more content, not having to wrestle their way into feeders etc. Nice work !
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TexX ewes - which Tup to use?
- Thread starter Nithsdale
- Start date
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Steeper angle might have been better... but we set the first blocks etc on one of the middle bays and took a guess. Laid the first panel. Umm'd and ahh'd for a bit whether to lift and set steeper then decided it would be fine and cracked on!
If you look down the line, they aren't all straight - but because it was a 2nd hand shed the stanchions are not in a straight line so it was going to be next to impossible to get them perfect.
- Location
- N.Lincs
Can't beat a bit of designing 'on the hoof'Umm'd and ahh'd for a bit whether to lift and set steeper then decided it would be fine and cracked on!
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
There's 6-7 weeks until lambing '18 starts here... this morning was the first feed. Just 1/2lb for now. Nowhere near as much grass compared to this time last year, ewes look in OK condition at the moment still though. I prefer to feed earlier, and give a little over a longer period.
Hill ewes will get 1/2lb too, as the hill is looking bare in places.
Hill ewes will get 1/2lb too, as the hill is looking bare in places.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Cows are much more settled with the 'new' feed barrier, and the shed seems to have loads more extra space. Dad was very sceptical when we set about buying the chopper and doing up the barrier, but he is a real convert now
There is almost zero waste of silage too! The cows did flick some up onto the road, so we used the cast lifting points to bold a purlin stood up along the top edge to create a head board which has minimalised it. A quick graip sorts the odd bit which finds it's way onto the road.
Ewes were all Flukiver dosed last week, Vectocert sprayed and the tups pulled off
Totally un-sheep related, but this is the job this past few days. We bought an immaculate 2014 Kuhn Primor to bed the cattle with back in October - with an eye to feeding the silage bales through it too.
The estate put the (2nd hand) shed up to replace a falling down stone barn in 2004... at the time we fitted the crash barrier feed barrier... The shed is built into a hill, the other side is shuttered concrete to 7ft high which is where the floor level is... the digger driver got carried away as the hardcore was hauled in and he raised the road level to where it is above the level of the shed, creating an open ditch. We fed silage bales in it for a year or 2, but with it just being earth there was an awful lot of waste and took alot of digging out.. so we gave up and have been using feed trailers and ring feeders ever since...
We decided concrete panels laid would be the best (easiest) way to make an instant feed area so got some ordered. 130' long in total but we left a 15' bay at one end and 10' at the other clear otherwise it would be too tight getting trailers or lorries round, so 105' of feed area. Panels are in at roughly 45degrees and sat onto concrete blocks to keep them all the same(ish) level, with a drainage pipe underneath. There's blocks to be cemented up at either end to close off the trough, and we will backfill underneath the panels... but we finished laying today and tomorrow is the long awaited first feed (and not before time!!).
(I would like that road concreted... but loathe to do it when we are just tenants)
How will you prevent rain water getting into shed & wetting bedding?
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
The panels are not touching the ground, and are not concreted in, the ground was dug away and panels sit upto the concrete apron of the shed, outside of the stanchions, not ontop of it... rain water/silage effluent will drain through the seams, there's a perforated 4" pipe under the lowest point tapped into the drain from the gutters.
We are considering Gailbreakers (like shed opposite) above the barrier to stop rain blowing in, although the open side is North facing so isn't too bad.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
What a change 5 days can make from the green scenes in my last post. Weather warnings in place until 6pm tomorrow evening... the girls were glad to see me this morning! But they didn't seem too impressed when the snow bunged up the snacker and I couldn't get the feed to flow!
Wasn't looking forward to hauling the snacker up the hill, but the big diesel coped fine.
Wasn't looking forward to hauling the snacker up the hill, but the big diesel coped fine.
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Had all the ewes in last week and injected them with Trodax. On the whole they are holding their condition well - even with the snow we have had! The weather seems to jump from frozen solid and cold/snowy to warm and bloody wet!! Not much grass around this year compared to most others sadly. Thankfully I've a couple fields I've not grazed since November for the ewes to lamb in.
The stars of this thread were back in today for Bravoxin10 (should be Covexin8 but not happening due to shortage). There could be Suffolk lambs arrive anytime after the 14th... but I don't really expect anything much before 20th or 21st (famous last words though
The 2 pure Texels are not supposed to lamb until mid March, but one looks an awful lot closer than that... so I'm questioning what has caught her and when
Yes... for the eagle eyes one of the Suffolks (and one of the Cheviots) has managed to find his way back to his ladies. It must be love I practiced self control, and refrained from pulling him off
The stars of this thread were back in today for Bravoxin10 (should be Covexin8 but not happening due to shortage). There could be Suffolk lambs arrive anytime after the 14th... but I don't really expect anything much before 20th or 21st (famous last words though
The 2 pure Texels are not supposed to lamb until mid March, but one looks an awful lot closer than that... so I'm questioning what has caught her and when
Yes... for the eagle eyes
one of the Suffolks (and one of the Cheviots) has managed to find his way back to his ladies. It must be love I practiced self control, and refrained from pulling him off @Ysgythan will be really disappointed to read that
It’s as if you’re suggesting I’m the pervert...
- Location
- N.Lincs
- Location
- Montgomeryshire
I had a Highlander did the same. He wasn’t doing much chasing, so I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get the mob in to sort him out. He happened to be near the quad & trailer just before Christmas, so I pulled him off then. I put h8m out with a mob of 100 other rams, two fields and three decent fences away.
That mob of ewes stayed on that parkland block after, using up some 5 year old hay. Putting a bale out on New Year’s Day, I looked round to see that Highlander ram stood grinning at me. He’s never been a wanderer before.
He stayed in a shed for the next week, before going into onto stubble turnips where he could be surrounded by leccy fences. Still there, today anyway....
I put h8m out with a mob of 100 other rams, two fields and three decent fences away.That mob of ewes stayed on that parkland block after, using up some 5 year old hay. Putting a bale out on New Year’s Day, I looked round to see that Highlander ram stood grinning at me.
He’s never been a wanderer before.He stayed in a shed for the next week, before going into onto stubble turnips where he could be surrounded by leccy fences. Still there, today anyway....
I had a Highlander did the same. He wasn’t doing much chasing, so I wasn’t in any particular hurry to get the mob in to sort him out. He happened to be near the quad & trailer just before Christmas, so I pulled him off then.
That mob of ewes stayed on that parkland block after, using up some 5 year old hay. Putting a bale out on New Year’s Day, I looked round to see that Highlander ram stood grinning at me.
He stayed in a shed for the next week, before going into onto stubble turnips where he could be surrounded by leccy fences. Still there, today anyway....
You know what they say, where there’s a will there’s a Dai...
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
@neilo I had 200 ewes here on tack and 4 rams. The 2 Charolais rams were very well behaved but the 2 highlanders were Houdinis as soon as they'd tupped all their ewes. Couldn't keep them behind electric at all, one went through 3 sets of electric to get to my ewe lambs... and the other ended up in with my stores and cull ewes.... 3 times.
- Location
- Penzance
Like these 2?...
Those are 2 fine looking beasts
I was thinking of using Cheviot on the Lleyns, but decide against it... Breeding pedigree
- Location
- Dumfries & Galloway
Those are 2 fine looking beasts
I was thinking of using Cheviot on the Lleyns, but decide against it... Breeding pedigree
My ewes are purely commercial, I'm not hung up on pure/pedigree or keeping them aligned with any one breed... so I'm open to try most things and introducing new bloods if I think it will improve the flock