next winters housing plans

grazeaway

now that this winter is drawing to a close (well final few furlongs at least) i have started thinking about next year. most years i do soemthing a little different with the way i house and seprate the cattle. this year i have extra weanlings as i have held onto about half of last years calves. Normally i only hold onto a few replacments heifers and a few of the late calves that were too young to sell in the authumn, and give them a straw bedded leanto to stay in, and let them out to the feed passage by day while the cows are out. because of the extra numbers this wasnt really practial this year so i have stuck them into one of the cublie house and give them access to part of the feed passage at night. thing is this reduces the space i have for the cows. i usually split the cows as they calf and put a creep area at the back of one of the cubile houses, that way the calves have access to their mothers at night and i can keep the dry and milking cows apart in the shed. Havent been able to do that this year so keep the milking cows in by day and leave them in the leanto with their calves. easy enough to seprate them but starting to get a bit tight for space as they calf.

I might keep more weanlings again this year so rather then building a new slatted shed i was thinking of converting another lean to. I was at 1st going to leave it straw beddded but was then thinking of putting in mats while leaving the area in front of the feed barrier free as they'll be standing here most of the time. Then scrape down the house a few times a week into the slats. No straw needed, no slats. anyone do this and how does it go for them? reckon this might be a better job as it'll give me more flexibility for using the shed. Plan on putting in removable barriers so i can use it for storage if i didnt need it for cattle. Also i can pen it out for differnt size cattle. No point spening a forture on extra slatted tanks if i dont actually use them

blue5000

Have you thought about putting weanlings on kale for the winter? Works ok while you are building up numbers and are not too tightly stocked, depends on your soil type obviously.

bbam

I'd expect our wintering won't come to an end until mid-late April..

bob charles

grazeaway wrote: »

now that this winter is drawing to a close (well final few furlongs at least)

Thats what we said 11 months ago

maxxuumman

I'm considering roofing the whole farm. Put in plenty of perspex to let in some light. Non drip sheeting just to be really sure it stays dry.

grazeaway

blue5000 wrote: »

Have you thought about putting weanlings on kale for the winter? Works ok while you are building up numbers and are not too tightly stocked, depends on your soil type obviously.

we have the cows on beet/kale during the day, did both a few years ago and it was a bit awkqard as the weanling kept trying to get to the cows, also we used to do a small bit of tillage and i was able to let them on the stubble which was great as i could feed them silage there too. Have most of the home place in grass now. Also about half of the calves i keep are late calfs so its easier to keep them in the shed to put on condtion and seprate the smallest if need be.

grazeaway

bob charles wrote: »

Thats what we said 11 months ago

all i said was that winter was coming to an end, said nothing about summer.... well we live in perpertual authumn at the moment all that changes is the lenght of the night

mf240

grazeaway wrote: »

all i said was that winter was coming to an end, said nothing about summer.... well we live in perpertual authumn at the moment all that changes is the lenght of the night

Everybody even the hardened old soldiers and those that never complain are starting to crack from the stress of it all.
It's been so long since I seen a bunch of animals lying of in the sun packed with grass that I'm starting to wonder if I imagined it.
Sorry if this is off topic I just really needed to get it off my chest.

yellow50HX

Can you drive a scraper across cattle mats?