Question

podge 23

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So I have 75 cubicle spaces in this house for dairy cows but I am really tight for head space so diagram below shows what I am on about 25 cubicle spaces in each pen but only feeding space for 16 cows so any 1 have any ideas to how I can sort this ?
 

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Just a bit I forgot to put in there is walls between eash of the cubicle houses as well and that is a full tank along the front .
Passage to silage pit is on left of shed
On the right of shed yearlings have the 1st house which is not ideal either
 
They are feed silage only, and cows are in separate pens in that shed and there is more cows in another shed as well .
 
Just a bit I forgot to put in there is walls between eash of the cubicle houses as well and that is a full tank along the front .
Passage to silage pit is on left of shed
On the right of shed yearlings have the 1st house which is not ideal either
You're fairly limited with what you can do there, tbh. If all the cows were mixed, you might be able to lay a bit of concrete and extend the feedface at the top of the picture along the length of the top wall but uncovered areas are going to collect a good bit of rainwater and might complicate your storage? That would give you a huge increase in feed area for little cost but you wouldn't be able to run different groups of cows then.

Would you be able to close off the weanling feed area and give the cows full access and make an entrance to a new feed area at the bottom of the pic for the young animals? That would increase cow feed area by 33% but limit your options of having different groups?

The other option is to open up the back of the shed along where the road to and from the silage pit is and have an uncovered feed area there if you have enough room to fit in some 15' of concrete, 12' for the cows and 3' for the silage.

Or split the middle cubicle houses feed area between the two outside pens of cows and create a feed area for the middle pen at the back of their house and again lose some 15' of the main feeding route for silage?

Whatever way you work, you're still going to have an uncovered feed area and a need to scrape it regularly to the tank at the right of the pit?

I don't think there's any other options left :laugh:
 
Screenshot_20210713-071613_Gallery.jpg
Green = extra troughs
Blue = access to the passages.

Not sure how much you would gain mind you!
 
Have to agree with @whelan1 .your caught every way.you could still use the old shed for Youngstock / dry cows.
Have you another shed for younger stock that could be revamped and extended to cater for your cows and have room if you ever do increase numbers in the future
 
The top cubicle house could you put a tank & feed passage above the top of it for this cubicle house .you could use the current feed area for the top cubicle house then for the middle cubicle house then
 
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What is the far side of the feed passage. Is there room to put another tank there and let them feed from both sides of the passage?
 
Where you have the blue there AYF that is a dividing gate on the slats .
And where you have the blue is back wall of shed which is 6 feet under ground .

What did you do with your old sheds then Whelan1 and what did it cost you to build a new 1 ??

Well ya on the other side of the feed passage there is a open slurry tank ..
 
Where you have the blue there AYF that is a dividing gate on the slats .
And where you have the blue is back wall of shed which is 6 feet under ground .

What did you do with your old sheds then Whelan1 and what did it cost you to build a new 1 ??

Well ya on the other side of the feed passage there is a open slurry tank ..
Slat the open slurry tank, you can get a grant on the slats. Whatever you do your going to have to spend money, there is not alternative.
 
Shed will hold 250 head. 125 each side , 10 bay. Slatted tank at the bottom, holds 3 weeks slurry when fully housed. Pumped over to slurry Tower. Used to have to feed twice a day. Now feed less than once a day. Automatic scrapers. All dry cow, heifers and milkers housed there. Shed cost just over 275k after vat came back. No grant. That includes all site works etc. Old sheds will be turned into calving sheds
 

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Shed will hold 250 head. 125 each side , 10 bay. Slatted tank at the bottom, holds 3 weeks slurry when fully housed. Pumped over to slurry Tower. Used to have to feed twice a day. Now feed less than once a day. Automatic scrapers. All dry cow, heifers and milkers housed there. Shed cost just over 275k after vat came back. No grant. That includes all site works etc. Old sheds will be turned into calving sheds
Futureproof
 
Shed will hold 250 head. 125 each side , 10 bay. Slatted tank at the bottom, holds 3 weeks slurry when fully housed. Pumped over to slurry Tower. Used to have to feed twice a day. Now feed less than once a day. Automatic scrapers. All dry cow, heifers and milkers housed there. Shed cost just over 275k after vat came back. No grant. That includes all site works etc. Old sheds will be turned into calving sheds
That is a lifetime job, impressive.
 
Fine shed , must be a pleasure to work in.hope you left a wee gap between the slat and where concrete was poured up to it.
We had to change all the slats in the cow shed 6 yrs ago.all bar 4 gangs were easy lifted except for where there was no spacer put in pouring a bit of concrete.there was a few prayers said for the building contractor up @mixedfleet country.
 
Shed will hold 250 head. 125 each side , 10 bay. Slatted tank at the bottom, holds 3 weeks slurry when fully housed. Pumped over to slurry Tower. Used to have to feed twice a day. Now feed less than once a day. Automatic scrapers. All dry cow, heifers and milkers housed there. Shed cost just over 275k after vat came back. No grant. That includes all site works etc. Old sheds will be turned into calving sheds

Savage. Fair play
 
Shed will hold 250 head. 125 each side , 10 bay. Slatted tank at the bottom, holds 3 weeks slurry when fully housed. Pumped over to slurry Tower. Used to have to feed twice a day. Now feed less than once a day. Automatic scrapers. All dry cow, heifers and milkers housed there. Shed cost just over 275k after vat came back. No grant. That includes all site works etc. Old sheds will be turned into calving sheds
Well wear, you don't know yourself with that, I bet:thumbup1:
 
Where you have the blue there AYF that is a dividing gate on the slats .
And where you have the blue is back wall of shed which is 6 feet under ground .

What did you do with your old sheds then Whelan1 and what did it cost you to build a new 1 ??

Well ya on the other side of the feed passage there is a open slurry tank ..
Replace the dividing gates with troughs was the thought behind it.
And new access to move the cows through the back wall rather than the gates which are now troughs under my design.

So it's built into a bank?

I second the notion of an extra shed.
 
Do the cows have to be separated or is it a case of you separate them because the divides are there? If they don’t need to be seperated could you extend the the feed passage and a standing area off the end of the tank to one end of the shed out into the yard, as said though it will need scraping and probably extra storage. If you can’t go straight out could you run along one end of the shed so the feed face would be in an L shape and when cows are eating from the outside bit their arses would be facing the cubicles if you get me?
Other option is does the shed to the right of the passage way feed of the feed passage too? Could you re arrange them to another shed then put a pair of gates across the feed passage so that the cows can go around to the other side?

or if the cattle in the shed to the right don’t feed from that passage could you convert it into a double feed trough like this; 05D71B4A-9366-4D12-940C-F609B7EB096E.jpeg
And let the cattle around onto the feed area so they can eat from it. Again a bit more scraping but rather than having a run that the tractor uses once or twice a day and sits half idle the rest of the time so the red would be the feed trough and the green being cows eating49D0DC0D-3F7C-4EFF-B0D9-6515DBAFE4DA.jpeg
Also just thinking with this it would still be possible to have it divided into 2 separate lots, with pens 1 and 2 together and then 3 and 4 together
 
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I seprete them when they are dry so like 23 or 25 in each pen because if I didn’t separate them when they calve I would have to go through the whole lot to get out the 1’s that have calved to milk them .
There is no shed to the right of it only an open slurry tank .
Yes it’s under ground the back of shed by about 6 feet .
 
Shed will hold 250 head. 125 each side , 10 bay. Slatted tank at the bottom, holds 3 weeks slurry when fully housed. Pumped over to slurry Tower. Used to have to feed twice a day. Now feed less than once a day. Automatic scrapers. All dry cow, heifers and milkers housed there. Shed cost just over 275k after vat came back. No grant. That includes all site works etc. Old sheds will be turned into calving sheds
That some job👍
 
I seprete them when they are dry so like 23 or 25 in each pen because if I didn’t separate them when they calve I would have to go through the whole lot to get out the 1’s that have calved to milk them .
There is no shed to the right of it only an open slurry tank .
Yes it’s under ground the back of shed by about 6 feet .
In that case maybe you could do partial troughs with say a 3ft pass around at each end of the pen, you’d end up with around 12ft head space each side of the trough so gaining 9/10ft of head room, might not be worth the effort though9E167183-207A-421E-8F67-9C99F96AA02F.jpeg
 
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