Cattle crossing

scurnane

Have a farm with dry cattle that need to cross a rural (but national) road every 3-4 weeks during the summer.
We struggle to get the manpower (normally just 2 of us) to assist with movement as the traffic approaches through bends and it's only an accident waiting to happen. We use traffic cones and signage but I can understand how drivers don't take much notice of cones nowadays.
The ultimate solution would be sell the land or dig a tunnel but does anyone have any other suggestions that they have seen or heard as being successful?

Thanks

Milked out

Could you make the plot across the road a stand alone unit, but up a handling area and have enough cattle there to graze that area? Split it in 3 or 4 and move them to a new bit every week?

Water John

I remember the time of the foot and mouth, I split the herd for each land parcel. Otherwise my animals would be interacting near other herds.

Depends on what type of animal you have. Two brothers up near Derry used to add weight to large Simmental type cattle to finish heavy. They simply used small lots of about 20 cattle. Each lot had simply 2 paddocks and alternated every two weeks. They maintained that with little movement and in small lots, the cattle had very little stress and thrived well.

A tunnel is over €40K.

Muckit

Set your alarm clock for 5am

Belongamick

May have to either
1. Build a very basic pen - crash barriers and strainers, for example and use a trailer to move stock every few weeks. To facilitate this some grain/nuts in the pen area would help greatly.
2. Depending on the size of the smaller plot, it may be worth dividing into paddocks and graze it more intensely to reduce the number of movements across the road.

I have to cross roads a couple of times each year and it just takes one spooked animal to mess the whole job up.

X6.430macman

Park the tractor where it can be seen in a safe ish place by the road, double beacons on hazards led lights everything flashing. Now do the same with the car/jeep at the other side. I think it would work as people would take notice and it's only every couple of weeks and it's a bit cheaper than a tunnel!

patsy_mccabe

Muckit wrote: »

Set your alarm clock for 5am

That can be even more dangerous as cars won't be expecting to meet anything on the road.

Pacoa

Zerograzer

FeelTheBern

What about buying few of those lantern orange flashing lights that you see at roadworks sometimes and putting them either side when you are moving. Think you'd definitely slow down driving around bend where they were flashing.

zetorman

Am I correct that you just want to "CROSS" the road i.e you have two plots of land directly across the road from each other ?? if so could you have a holding section or pen each side of the road. Then use a railway gates type system to block the road. A 12 ft gate swinging from each side would block a 24ft wide road. have this on both sides and traffic is fully stopped and no danger to humans who just run the cattle across.
I use a similar system for my dairy cows but as they are fairly quiet two white fence lines work for me. GOOD LUCK !! priority is to keep the humans safe first.

Milked out

zetorman wrote: »

Am I correct that you just want to "CROSS" the road i.e you have two plots of land directly across the road from each other ?? if so could you have a holding section or pen each side of the road. Then use a railway gates type system to block the road. A 12 ft gate swinging from each side would block a 24ft wide road. have this on both sides and traffic is fully stopped and no danger to humans who just run the cattle across.
I use a similar system for my dairy cows but as they are fairly quiet two white fence lines work for me. GOOD LUCK !! priority is to keep the humans safe first.

You'd want a good straight stretch of road with a good view to put gates across a road, have seen it work fine but on a road with bends and any bit of speed I wouldn't trust everyone to stop on time, there would nearly want to be lads at the last bend to.slow drivers down. Seen a few close calls with just cows not a mind gates on the road

farmerjj

Just a word to the wise,you need two people on the road to be insured.

Base price

farmerjj wrote: »

Just a word to the wise,you need two people on the road to be insured.

I remember hearing that before. One in front and one behind? They also have to carry flags to warn traffice and wear hi-viz clothing if I remember correctly.
Oh, and be responsible persons as in not children.

Base price

Knew a (now retired) dairy farmer who had land either side of a busy byroad. He had permanent yellow flashing beacons with a very loud alarm sounding which he turned on when he had to bring the cows across the road.