calving pen design

bogman_bass

any body have any good ideas for a calving pen design. I'm trying to think of a good safe design that if I had to deal with an aggessive cow that needed assistance that I could deal with her without A) her goring me or her driving the gate back over me.

this is the best I've found so far. I cant figure out he gets the gate to lock at the first and second possitions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb5O7EaqpgA
I've realised that the calving gate I have is grand most of the time but I'm putting myself in harms way if I try and get an aggresive animal behind it

Bizzum

Are you missing a link there BB?

bogman_bass

Opps! good man Bizzum!

johnpawl

bogman_bass wrote: »

any body have any good ideas for a calving pen design. I'm trying to think of a good safe design that if I had to deal with an aggessive cow that needed assistance that I could deal with her without A) her goring me or her driving the gate back over me.

this is the best I've found so far. I cant figure out he gets the gate to lock at the first and second possitions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fb5O7EaqpgA
I've realised that the calving gate I have is grand most of the time but I'm putting myself in harms way if I try and get an aggresive animal behind it

it looks like a rectangular piece attached to the swinging gate is free to rotate back toward him and is spring loaded so that he can push it past a bar welded to the wall of the pen but the cow can't push the gate back toward him....

Bizzum

There are a couple of cows at home and I wouldn't go into that when they're sick to calve. It all looks very tight.

I often played around, in my head, with the idea of having the gate at the opposide end of the calving gate removable, that I could grap it with the loader and drive (slowly) forward forcing the cow toward the head gate.
No messing then!

bogman_bass

Bizzum wrote: »

There are a couple of cows at home and I wouldn't go into that when they're sick to calve. It all looks very tight.

I often played around, in my head, with the idea of having the gate at the opposide end of the calving gate removable, that I could grap it with the loader and drive (slowly) forward forcing the cow toward the head gate.
No messing then!

I agree it does look a bit tight but I like the principle of it. I like the idea of a gate with multible locking points that I wouldnt have to get in with her to driver and she couldnt drive out the gate as I tried to close it

signinlate

It looks very tight alright.
I put a bale on the loader a few times and used it to (slowly) push the gate closed behind the cow a few times.

grazeaway

Can you stick up a quick sketch of the your pen layout as depending on how you move the animals around you can taylor the pen.

We put in a cavling pen a few years back, previously we would seectioned off an area at the back of teh cubicle shed. The cow would go up into the cubile space and that would be ok to stop her from turning. This was fine if they were quite but not great if we nned to stop them from moving.

What we have now in an area behind the slatted feeding area. There is an old shed backing on the slats and instead of putting a wall up we but in gates. This area is 2 bays wide so we have two gates on the centre pillar opening onto the slats. Inside the pen we have an old crush gate bolted to the centre pillar at 90 degress to the slatts and a gatethat can be swing 180 degrees which can be used to divide the pen in two or to close up the area to the crush gate when foring the cow in. We woul doften stick a bucket with a few nuts behind the crush to get the cow to stick her head out. The crush is gatting a bit shook so i might change it out this year. The crush gate is a better job IMO if the cow goes down. I can open it quickly to release her with out worrying about her head getting caught. As the cow is next to the slats i can open the that gate too if i need access for lifting. I also have plenty of light in the area with a flood light up over the pen so ther is no shadow.

not sure if that is any help. If i had a fresh start and didnt have to worry about existing buildings i would make the pen slightly different. I would have the pen by a wall. with a semi auto crush gate hanging in the corner off the wall (preferly with the cows right side against the wall). A strong gate would hang off the crush and be used to corall the cow in, the gate would then lock the cow in as she pushes against it.

yourmanthere

lads is there anything that should definately be included or excluded when building calving pens. im putting in 4 now and dont plan on ever changing them if possible.

Milked out

I would put any posts in sleeves so it can be removed if a cow goes down, also allow loader access fort cleaning out or lifting a cow, pens big enough to work the jack comfortably, if miking have them close to parlour, altho a small walk is no harm to make sure the cow is steady on her feet, if dealing with sucklers perhaps a space big enough for u to exit quickly but to small for the cow, like what you'd see in a bull pen iykwim

yourmanthere

alright thanks for that. all dairy here. would fourteen foot by 15 foot be sufficient space for use of calving jack with calving gate do you think? at least the dairy cows are managable. have experience with sucklers and dairy cows are like manna from heaven tbh

yellow50HX

15 ft would min distance really behind the cow. Nothing worse then being caught for space after making a new pen.

I would say the key things to get right are,
1) access, you want to be able to get the cow in and out easily with havering open to many gates or have to move other animals.
2) tractor access, make sure you can get your tractor in for bedding, cleaning out the pens and also in case you need to lift out a cow ( make sure there is enough head room to do this).
3) light, plenty of light to see what your doing.
4) flexibility, try to set it up so you can easily change gates and pen sizes.
5) handling, use of locking barriers and gates to stall up the cow. I prefer a fixed crush gate with a forcing gate instead of the calving gate. Stronger and easier open if she goes down. If you can get a gate which can be opened to allow suckling and C sections is very good.
6) if you can set it up that you can feed the cow from the pen that also helps.

blue5000

Only thing I can think of adding is if you've sucklers put in a few adjustable vertical bars in a gate so you can use the pen for creep feeding. Might be most useful in spring calving herds where some late born calves are still on cows at housing in the autumn/winter and nothing is calving until spring.

yourmanthere

thanks lads. gives me alot of confidence that ive already thought of all of the above. i can get double swinging gates which is handy as they can enter from either side of the walk way. the lad i have doing the steel is unbelievable to be fair to him. said he can build the calving gates for me and he has so much experience at this i think ill leave him off. he has sme great ideas, what do ye think is better, on big or a number of small troughs dotted around a cubicle house?