Yet more slurry

Bitten & Hisses

I have never spread slurry at this time of year. The simple reason is, I just don't have sufficient pens away from the slatted house to move the cattle to while agitating. How do you guys manage? I may have to do some spreading shortly just to alleviate some pressure on space. A neighbour told me he once agitated with the cattle in the shed, but that a good few cows aborted afterwards.

dar31

can you let them out on some of the farm tracks

Tipp Man

I don't think in 30 odd years we have ever emptied the sheds before agitating

As long as no effluent going into the tank it should be fine

If your worried open the doors and shutters wide for a bit of draft

Bitten & Hisses

Farm tracks aren't an option unfortunately, as sucklers would go mental to say the least. There's no effluent entering the tanks, as all silage is baled. Is the consensus that you can agitate away with cattle in the shed if there's no effluent in the tank?

whelan1

we where always told evacuate and ventilate before you agitate , thats what we do.... i wouldnt chance it , have heard a lot of stories of animals dropping

BeeDI

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

Farm tracks aren't an option unfortunately, as sucklers would go mental to say the least. There's no effluent entering the tanks, as all silage is baled. Is the consensus that you can agitate away with cattle in the shed if there's no effluent in the tank?

No. No. No. Madness. Stupid. Wreckless.

whelan1

can you not just suck afew loads out to alleviate the problem , i know it wont be mixed but you are making space

cjpm

whelan1 wrote: »

can you not just suck afew loads out to alleviate the problem , i know it wont be mixed but you are making space

Yep have to agree. It won't make a difference to take a few loads out of the tank. WAYYYY safer than chancing agitating it anyway.

Bitten & Hisses

whelan1 wrote: »

can you not just suck afew loads out to alleviate the problem , i know it wont be mixed but you are making space

That's what I'll end up doing if I need to. I always believed that you evacuated completely before agitating, but was wondering if it was strictly necessary. Anyway, question answered.

Tipp Man

Bitten & Hisses wrote: »

That's what I'll end up doing if I need to. I always believed that you evacuated completely before agitating, but was wondering if it was strictly necessary. Anyway, question answered.

Yikes looks like some people take this way more seriously than we do. AnywAy touch wood we've never had any issues

ihatetractors

I'd evacuate, safer. Fathers friends was aggitating one day, next thing he knew he was picking himself off the ground :eek:. A very lucky man by all accounts, was quick to buy a proper gas mask device

F.D

I think it depends on the shed and the weather conditions
If its a full open sided shed on a good windy day, i'd say the risk is minimal, i have seen it done by other farmers in the area who think bad of even opening a door on a fully enclosed shed while agitating and have had no trouble luckily for them,
I have also had the pleasure of working in a shed a few times with the slurry aeration system in it and trust me i could hardly stand in it with the smell while it was running i used to step out for a while incase i would get effected, but i never seen a cow go down there either, maybe because its more frequent there isnt as much of a build up of methane

mantua

Its not recomended to agitate with cattle in the shed but sure what can ya do when slurrys only inches from coming up through the slats the last 3 years we have had to but on windy days ofcourse and we seem to not have any problems with cattle!! It all depends on how well ventilated the shed is and if its sheltered around more sheds!

BeeDI

BeeDI wrote: »

No. No. No. Madness. Stupid. Wreckless.

I should have added to this but got distracted. Friend of mine was having his tank agitated some years ago by a contractor. Again no effluent in tank. He walked into the shed in the middle of the operation, whilst contractor was on the phone. Anyway he was overcome with the gas, but luckily for him your man on the phone happened to walk past the entrance and spotted him flat out inside. Ran in, grabbed him, pulled him out in open air. Called emergency services. He partially came round after about 5 minutes. Lucklily ambulance near by, got to scene quickly, treated him and took him to the hospital. Spent over a day in intensive care!!! Had to have nemerous tests over the next couple of days, to rule out potential brain damage due to oxygen deprivation. In the end he was ok, and is flying to this day, BUT one more minute in the shed, he was would have been dead or seriously brain damaged!!!
When agitating, you can just never predict where and when a pocket of this gas can be released and lodge. If you happen to be in that particular part of the shed at that point in time, you are goosed. What chance do you think cattle have, when they are packed in 6 or 7 to a pen, in every pen?

John_F

methane isnt the problem. Its hydrogen sulphide. this smells like eggs at low concentrations but at high concentrations it is odourless!

just google slurry gas death http://www.independent.ie/farming/slurry-gas-during-agitation-can-kill-in-just-10-seconds-377473.html

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide#Toxicity:

Exposure to lower concentrations can result in eye irritation, a sore throat and cough, nausea, shortness of breath, and fluid in the lungs. These effects are believed to be due to the fact that hydrogen sulfide combines with alkali present in moist surface tissues to form sodium sulfide, a caustic.[10] These symptoms usually go away in a few weeks.
Long-term, low-level exposure may result in fatigue, loss of appetite, headaches, irritability, poor memory, and dizziness. Chronic exposure to low level H2S (around 2 ppm) has been implicated in increased miscarriage and reproductive health issues among Russian and Finnish wood pulp workers,[11] but the reports have not (as of circa 1995) been replicated.
0.00047 ppm is the recognition threshold, the concentration at which 50% of humans can detect the characteristic odor of hydrogen sulfide,[12] normally described as resembling "a rotten egg".
Less than 10 ppm has an exposure limit of 8 hours per day.
10–20 ppm is the borderline concentration for eye irritation.
50–100 ppm leads to eye damage.
At 100–150 ppm the olfactory nerve is paralyzed after a few inhalations, and the sense of smell disappears, often together with awareness of danger.[13][14]
320–530 ppm leads to pulmonary edema with the possibility of death.
530–1000 ppm causes strong stimulation of the central nervous system and rapid breathing, leading to loss of breathing.
800 ppm is the lethal concentration for 50% of humans for 5 minutes exposure (LC50).
Concentrations over 1000 ppm cause immediate collapse with loss of breathing, even after inhalation of a single breath.
Hydrogen sulfide was used by the British as a chemical agent during World War One. It was not considered to be an ideal war gas, but, while other gases were in short supply, it was used on two occasions in 1916.[15] The gas, produced by mixing certain household ingredients, was used in a suicide wave in 2008, primarily but not exclusively in Japan.[16] As of 2010, this has occurred in a number of US cities (and in Putney West London, England), prompting warnings to first responders who can be exposed when responding to a suicide.[17]

dont adjitate on calm day with animals in shed, we evacuate but know a few farmers that dont, it depends on the shed and the wind to clear the gas.

have heard too many stories of cattle and men dying. the gas is heavy so if you enter a tank, specially deep tanks the danger is huge!

denis086

I have to say were one of the ones who never leave the cattle out but its a very airy shed. Ive only ever seen the dog go down after he went for a sniff :rolleyes: couple of thumps splashing water on him and he was running about in no time again! But i would always be watching the pens just in case from the safety of the cab or looking in from outside over a gate.

quietsailor

Everytime you have humans or cattle in a shed that is being agitated your gambling!

First off; its not the gas that kills you, it'll more likely be the lack of oxygen.

I used to work on shops for a living and one of the main causes of death was people entering spaces that had a toxic gas or just no oxygen in that space. Cattle sheds fit that description if they are enclosed and have no ventilation. We are taught never to go into any spaces where there may be gas without ventilating.

And the largest number of people killed by enclosed spaces - not the person who originally collapsed - but the 2 or 3 people who go in after that first person and then collapse. If you see someone passed out;

1. Raise the alarm - if you are the only person in the yard and you collapse in there you've literally committed suicide, no matter how close you are to the person stop and think for a second before you enter.

2. Look and see if you can get in, pick up the person and pull them out in one breath. If they've collapsed then the air in there is no good. It won't magically become normal air again just because your on a mission of mercy.

I know some of ye are going to say - I've never ventilated and its always been ok, well it only has to be a pocket of gas to kill you, it doesn't have to be a whole shed of it.

whelan1

denis086 wrote: »

I have to say were one of the ones who never leave the cattle out but its a very airy shed. Ive only ever seen the dog go down after he went for a sniff :rolleyes: couple of thumps splashing water on him and he was running about in no time again! But i would always be watching the pens just in case from the safety of the cab or looking in from outside over a gate.

so what would you do if an animal went down , surely its too dangerous to go in , you wouldn't be much help to it ... for the sake of 10 minutes work running cattle out i cant believe how lax a daisy some people are... slurry gas kills end of

pakalasa

If you have to take slurry out of a slatted shed and you cant move the cattle then it's best to just suck out a few loads, without agitating. Do on a very windy day too.

Nutcase

I was on my friends farm once and he was mixing a tank of slurry in the summer it was pig slurry and half water and the tank was only half full no cattle in the shed. He said he went in to see if it was moving all the way 2 the top of the tank and when he looked through the slats he felt the air/gas blowing up into his face, he said it felt like his nostrils were burning and that he felt dizzy i met him coming runnin out of the shed and when he got outside he just fainted fell to the ground like a tonne of bricks. He woke up again within a minute but it just shows how dangerous and how quickly that it can take hold of you.

denis086

whelan1 wrote: »

so what would you do if an animal went down , surely its too dangerous to go in , you wouldn't be much help to it ... for the sake of 10 minutes work running cattle out i cant believe how lax a daisy some people are... slurry gas kills end of

Turn off the pump and wait a couple of minutes the shed is practically open weve never had any respiratory problems in the shed just whatever way its placed and ventilated theres never stale air its a haybarn with a slatted tank in the middle and a lean to with a raised roof to one side the lean to's peak is the highest point in the middle of the shed with spaced timber along the side it would take a hell of alot of gases to fill the raised part and with the 6 doors (smallest being 10ft) wide open the amount flowing out couldnt be replaced you dont know the set up so you could never really comment on it to be honest!
Im surprised whelan youd say something as stupid as 10 mins to sort 7 pens of bullocks and weanlings that have been in a shed all winter that have to be moved through an open yard and kept in the sorted lots bit unrealistic there i think! Id have more of a risk of being killed while shifting the bullocks than by the gases.

jeff greene

denis086 wrote: »

Turn off the pump and wait a couple of minutes the shed is practically open weve never had any respiratory problems in the shed just whatever way its placed and ventilated theres never stale air its a haybarn with a slatted tank in the middle and a lean to with a raised roof to one side the lean to's peak is the highest point in the middle of the shed with spaced timber along the side it would take a hell of alot of gases to fill the raised part and with the 6 doors (smallest being 10ft) wide open the amount flowing out couldnt be replaced you dont know the set up so you could never really comment on it to be honest!
Im surprised whelan youd say something as stupid as 10 mins to sort 7 pens of bullocks and weanlings that have been in a shed all winter that have to be moved through an open yard and kept in the sorted lots bit unrealistic there i think! Id have more of a risk of being killed while shifting the bullocks than by the gases.

Look, slurry gases kill, thats a fact.

Its fine if you want to gamble your life along with your stocks’ but you shouldn’t be condoning this irresponsible behaviour.

So what if it takes longer than 10 mins to move stock around, better than lifting them out with the loader.

denis086

jeff greene wrote: »

Look, slurry gases kill, thats a fact.

Its fine if you want to gamble your life along with your stocks’ but you shouldn’t be condoning this irresponsible behaviour.

So what if it takes longer than 10 mins to move stock around, better than lifting them out with the loader.

Not once did i tell anyone not to remove their stock! I just simply said that we dont, we never have and never will! Ill put it simply in the nearly 30 years that the shed has been up we have never had an animal go down because of the gases a bit of common sence is what is needed there is no doubt gases can kill but in a shed such as ours which is sufficiently ventilated there is absolutely no reason for us to remove them. If we ever do have a bullock go down i promise i will return and apologise and admit i was wrong about what is best practice on our farm and that you were all right about it without ever seeing the shed!

"main causes of death was people entering spaces that had a toxic gas or just no oxygen in that space. Cattle sheds fit that description if they are enclosed and have no ventilation. We are taught never to go into any spaces where there may be gas without ventilating."
Heres a small extract from a previous post which i thought was very good at explaining it but our shed is neither enclosed nor is it not ventilated. There maybe gases present but with the shear volume of air within the shed and the flow of air through it means that they do not cause a problem they never have and hopefully never will.