What's everyone bedding their cubicles up with?

[Sid]

Always have used straw and lime but it's time consuming and still doesn't keep the cows that clean. Have mattresses so don't want to go down the deep sand bed route. What would you recommend, sawdust, shavings or an envirobed type thing or just stick with what I'm doing? Cheers

What sort of machine are you using to put the straw in with?

We were using a teagle 404 that shredded the straw but cows use to pull it out and it wouldn't gointo the reception pit for the store.
Saw a line of clear boxes at royal cornwall show on teagle stand with various chop lengths from a mill.(edit we have a 21mm screen in, and its quicker to scrap now as well, cubicle beds are easier to "manage")

http://www.teagle.co.uk/en-gb/products/drum-tomahawk/tomahawk-404m-505m-505xlm.php

We now bed with straw on mon,actisan on tuesday, sawdust wed,actisan thursday and straw again on friday. Maybe actisan on the saturday if needed.
A good mix of differnet absorbancies.

 

[Headless chicken]

So are you finding your older machine a bit slow or blocks up every now and then. Are the two machines different at all to look at and sorry one more q's are you deep sand beds or on mats/mattresses.thanks

Older machine struggles to do anything with it at all near to useless if you fill it full tried various things to get it sorted but haven't worked it out yet. Doesn't seem blocked more like there is too much weight on the belt for some reason. Our machine is red with a green belt

Other machine is galv with white belt and a lot of small teeth in it. This one has a plate that slides in and our depending on if your on sawdust or sand.

Our machine does but it's jammed solid so have cut holes into plate as big as possible to stop bridging.

We are deep bed sand goes out 2 times a week other farm is bedded either on mattress or straight onto of concrete.

 

[Splitpin]

What sort of machine are you using to put the straw in with?

We were using a teagle 404 that shredded the straw but cows use to pull it out and it wouldn't gointo the reception pit for the store.
Saw a line of clear boxes at royal cornwall show on teagle stand with various chop lengths from a mill.

http://www.teagle.co.uk/en-gb/products/drum-tomahawk/tomahawk-404m-505m-505xlm.php

We now bed with straw on mon,actisan on tuesday, sawdust wed,actisan thursday and straw again on friday. Maybe actisan on the saturday if needed.
A good mix of differnet absorbancies.

We have an old kv 814 machine similar to the kidd type job. Shreds it more than chops it. I believe you can get a fine chop kit for it but doubt I'd want to go down that route due to the age. So how short does the teagle take it down to,precision chop silage length? Take it actisan is a disinfectant type thing.

 

[Sid]

We have an old kv 814 machine similar to the kidd type job. Shreds it more than chops it. I believe you can get a fine chop kit for it but doubt I'd want to go down that route due to the age. So how short does the teagle take it down to,precision chop silage length? Take it actisan is a disinfectant type thing.

I honestly didn't believe it would chop the straw like it does so we had a demo, with 21 mm holes in screen( can have 10,12,15,18,21,28,36 or 50mm holes) the straw is 21 mm mostly. The machine never went back. they offered to change the screen size if we wanted longer or shorter and i'll say its payed for itsself is reduce bedding time, cubicle prep time and scraping time. We went for the 505 not the 404 as the bigger drum would take a 4 ft bale of well packed straw with ease.

Yes actisan is a disinfectant type thing, we tried 4 different types in different rows of cubicles and found that one to be the best in our system.

 

[Gilchro]

How are you handling the slurry @st piran and have you seen a difference in comfort and health? I'm tempted to try some sand on mats here instead of sawdust.

Would you get away with using shell sand? Or is it too sharp?

 

[Blue.]

I use near 300t of sawdust a year,good job I get a good deal.

I have a 175s ag dispenser and if you shake the sawdust down it won't spread just jams up,I've no idea how it would be with sand but being an S model is was made for sand.

 

[bigw]

Would you get away with using shell sand? Or is it too sharp?

That's what I was wondering as at £5/ton it would be a cheap source of bedding even if its a bit of hassle with the slurry.

 

[Splitpin]

That's what I was wondering as at £5/ton it would be a cheap source of bedding even if its a bit of hassle with the slurry.

How does shell sand differ from ordinary sand? £5 a ton sounds very cheap

 

[bigw]

Its more coarse so would be more abrasive, I don't know if there would be much else different.

 

[jimmer]

sawdust and lime on matresses
dry wipe half of the cows put the rest straight on , bugger all mastitis
a light dusting three times a day rather than dragging old damp stuff back to the important end of the cubicle
14x25kg bags for 380 cubicles
pretty sure its £3.85 per bag , i will check
i think that works out at approx £1 per cubicle per week , based on yearly peaks and troughs, plus lime , approx 1 bag per day

 

[Splitpin]

sawdust and lime on matresses
dry wipe half of the cows put the rest straight on , bugger all mastitis
a light dusting three times a day rather than dragging old damp stuff back to the important end of the cubicle
14x25kg bags for 380 cubicles
pretty sure its £3.85 per bag , i will check
i think that works out at approx £1 per cubicle per week , based on yearly peaks and troughs, plus lime , approx 1 bag per day

Thanks jimmer, good info there. How you applying the sawdust?

 

[st piran]

Been having a ring round today, my local dealer tried telling me that an ag won't cope with sand and I have to buy a Woodchuck machine. You seem to get on fine by the looks of things, he said the belt won't last 5 mins with sand???
Anyone else using sand on mattresses?

Our first ag dispenser (175red) was bought second hand at a sale for £400 but it had a new belt and did us fine for probably 3/4 years and only changed it because the undercarriage that the belt unit is attached to was rusted out. We've had one of them galvanised (175) ones now for 18months and deals fine with sand just need to give them a quick shake when your getting the last 1/3 out.

 

[jimmer]

Thanks jimmer, good info there. How you applying the sawdust?

ag maxi push along job
it might seem a bit manual for 400 cubicles over two sheds and six passages, but it means a lot of control over amount per each bed
load the dispenser ,half a bag of dust small shovel of lime the rest of the dust and a bit more lime ,it all comes out mixed and not in a bloody great cloud

 

[Kernow]

If you gave problems with the ag or info on it then ring them directly. We got a 15 year old one bought second hand. We rang up and spoke to the chap that design it, he help us to get it working including what we could change or modify to make it work better based on what they had done to the newer ones. We even spoke to him at the weekend and this with us only spending a couple hundred on the machine from a 3 Rd party and a hundred on parts not all from them evon and some of are time in the workshop. It works much quicker than when we used to chuck the sand in by bucket and shovel

 

[Ducati899]

just gone to mattress's with sawdust in the last 10 days,now the cows are used to them its a pleasure to milk them..alot cleaner then when i was using straw through our old teagle hammer mill as @jimmer says we have to dry wipe the odd few off but the rest the units can go straight on

 

[Valmetal Inc]

Chopping the straw bedding finely with a chopper beds cubicles quickly and efficiently… keeps your cows clean and dry….. encourages heifers to lie in cubicles….is very cost effective

 

[Coldbrook]

Used environed when it first came out but it settled in the channels under the slats and blocked everything up, what's the new stuff like?

 

[Chippy]

Been on it 2 years and no sign of settling in channels

 

[ploughman1963]

We are on Arden agrisorb - dispensed across 300 cubicles with mattresses each morning with a very old bobman that brushes the back of the beds clean then a second run to dispense the agrisorb. Add hyrated lime to the agrisorb every other day. Bactoscans sinle figures to 20 and cell counts sub 150 (except when a lot of cows getting stale and not giving much)

 

[Happy hillbily]

Cows are on mayo mats, and bed once a day with straw through a teagle 404, using a two spike bale spike to load with segments of square bales. lime once every few weeks with bucket and hand, have had more hock leisions after putting the mats in, but their lying down nearly twice as long.