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How necessary are cattle sheds?

  • 07-12-2015 12:06PM
    #1
    20silkcut
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,734 ✭✭✭


    As far as I can see cattle are as well off out in the open on a concrete slab with a wall and canopy for shelter or a good line of trees.
    Outlier cattle are more sought after and perceived as hardier than cattle kept in sheds.
    Obviously sick animals and calving cows need some sort of sheds.
    But most shed building is driven by department dislike for soiled water run off from yards and of course the construction lobby are more than happy to advocate more sheds.
    But can those issues be solved easier??


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Comments

  • #2
    Muckit
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,173 ✭✭✭✭Muckit


    Such a time to be bringing this up! Has the weather not affected your area at all? :)

    Pollution would be the biggest issue. Everybody likes clean drinking water! The money you would save on building the shed you would have to spend on storage tanks for effluent.


  • #3
    patsy_mccabe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,391 ✭✭✭✭patsy_mccabe


    I have cattle still out. I would normally have them all in by now, but I still have grass and I don't like leaving a butt over the winter. Funny thing is despite the bad weather, the ones outside look a lot more content. I even have some in a very exposed field with no shelter from the west.
    The cattle inside all look sore on their feet and fairly miserable to be honest.

    I bought a field this year and it is right beside our own. I have cattle there and they are not even marking it. I got it tested and it had index 1 for both P and K. PH was way way down too. Our own place looks a lot better but the cattle would cut it to pieces. The poorer land just seems to have a firmer soil structure. I think when you fertilise soil it becomes a lot looser when it gets wet.


  • #4
    djmc
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,611 ✭✭✭djmc


    I would like to see department pushing to have more cattle out wintered at low stocking rates
    Even a push to have a premium payment for rear breeds including other EU breed's such as highland and Galloway etc.
    I think it would be good for the environment and eco system overall.
    As far as wintering pads once animals can have shelter from driving rain and wind they should be OK.
    Unfortunately we have a situation at the moment
    Where farmers can loose large parts of there income under the nitrates directive without any evidence of pollution.
    So until that changes out wintering would be like Russian roulette depending on the inspector you get on the day.


  • #5
    20silkcut
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,734 ✭✭✭20silkcut


    Muckit wrote: »
    Such a time to be bringing this up! Has the weather not affected your area at all? :)

    Pollution would be the biggest issue. Everybody likes clean drinking water! The money you would save on building the shed you would have to spend on storage tanks for effluent.


    I heard local farmers talking about never having as much pneumonia as this year from cattle in sheds.


  • #6
    _Brian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,980 ✭✭✭✭_Brian


    20silkcut wrote: »
    I heard local farmers talking about never having as much pneumonia as this year from cattle in sheds.

    The yo-yo temperatures surely to blame. 12-13c daytime temps is hard on housed stock.
    However, our Heavy ground isn't capable of wintering stock, they'd be to their bellies in mud and ground wouldn't recover till July after it.

    Our few are content in, had them out for a dose at weekend and they are looking well fleshed. Feet are only sore for a few days.


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  • #7
    Limestone Cowboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,634 ✭✭✭Limestone Cowboy


    patsy_mccabe wrote: »
    I have cattle still out. I would normally have them all in by now, but I still have grass and I don't like leaving a butt over the winter. Funny thing is despite the bad weather, the ones outside look a lot more content. I even have some in a very exposed field with no shelter from the west.
    The cattle inside all look sore on their feet and fairly miserable to be honest.

    I bought a field this year and it is right beside our own. I have cattle there and they are not even marking it. I got it tested and it had index 1 for both P and K. PH was way way down too. Our own place looks a lot better but the cattle would cut it to pieces. The poorer land just seems to have a firmer soil structure. I think when you fertilise soil it becomes a lot looser when it gets wet.

    I have 10 weanling heifer in a dry field with very little shelter less than a 1/4 mile from the sea and they are doing mighty despite the weather. Some spot to put up a fleece on them.


  • #8
    longgonesilver
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 734 ✭✭✭longgonesilver


    Are you being paid to have them outside?


  • #9
    Kovu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    I'd say the major determining factor is ground type.

    If you live near good rocky land like Limestone above, no they are not a necessity, cattle will be happy out on dry enough ground. Even midlands with loamy soils and good drainage they're grand, once they've the acreage to wander instead of plough.

    However, here in the deep whesht we have daub and moor and boggy type soil. We only built a slatted shed in 2000/2001 after the big Christmas Eve storm knocked a hayshed.
    Before that it was byre with cows chained up or cattle out on our driest ground with an old house and good hedges to keep them happy. Would I go back to it? Fcuk no. The hardship alone was unreal, walking out in all weather over 15 acres of small fields to find them. Calves born and awol, frost killing the nerves in their ears, carting hay/silage to them all the time mucking up the field more and more each time.
    Byre was ok but cows would forget how to walk, must have played havoc with their heads too, staring at a wall for five months. Pull the neck off themselves for two days after going in. Even seen one cow cut her neck on the chain and the skin grew over the chain as it wasn't spotted. Dad had to reopen the wound pulling the chain out.

    Having said that, I know fellas who still use byres and wouldn't change it for the world. One mad auld fella in his 70s still chains his bull in the shed!!


  • #10
    memorystick
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,696 ✭✭✭memorystick


    Try lighting a Silk Cut under a ditch today!


  • #11
    Mad4simmental
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,580 ✭✭✭Mad4simmental


    A big builder around here is after doing allot of jobs for a few dairy farmers. He done all the ground work and put in nice cement floors and hundreds of cubicles. The fecker went AWOL and never put up the sides or roof on any of them.


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  • #12
    Limestone Cowboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,634 ✭✭✭Limestone Cowboy


    longgonesilver wrote: »
    Are you being paid to have them outside?

    Get a bit for grazing the winterages properly but don't put weanlings to the winterage. Leave them on the green land for the winter.


  • #13
    sonnybill
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 991 ✭✭✭sonnybill


    I out winter everything and they are fine .. Odd early calf needs to be minded alright but generally they are the finest .. Sheds IMO are a haven for scour in sucklers .. Like head lice in a packed classroom


  • #14
    Base price
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,656 ✭✭✭✭Base price


    patsy_mccabe wrote: »
    I have cattle still out. I would normally have them all in by now, but I still have grass and I don't like leaving a butt over the winter. Funny thing is despite the bad weather, the ones outside look a lot more content. I even have some in a very exposed field with no shelter from the west.
    The cattle inside all look sore on their feet and fairly miserable to be honest.

    I bought a field this year and it is right beside our own. I have cattle there and they are not even marking it. I got it tested and it had index 1 for both P and K. PH was way way down too. Our own place looks a lot better but the cattle would cut it to pieces. The poorer land just seems to have a firmer soil structure. I think when you fertilise soil it becomes a lot looser when it gets wet.
    All of ours are still out and will stay out. When the temperature starts to drop we will move them closer to the yard and they will have access to dry bedded sheds. Having said that the majority are this years calves so they are not hard on the ground. We have a small out farm that is excellent winterage (22 acres) and is ideal for older stock so we may put the strongest group into it after Christmas. Prefer stock to be out if at all possible as they fair better than confined to sheds.
    Nothing will be going into the slatted unit. I personally hate them and reckon they are hard on stock. We normally bed the slats and use it as an overspill shed for rearing calves.


  • #15
    barnaman
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 682 ✭✭✭barnaman


    Depends on how many cattle you have firstly and land type secondly. All good points about health cattle and wondering wheither to bother building a shed in 2016 or not. If you have a 200 cattle sheds are a necessity.


  • #16
    Kovu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    Moved some posts to here- http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2057525698

    Seemed more suitable!


  • #17
    Miname
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,984 ✭✭✭Miname


    Once you build a shed you'll never go back. This craic of ploughing fields drawing bales and searching for animals with a flash lamp just doesn't work especially if your land spends the next four months trying to repair itself . All well and good leaving a couple of light weanlings out but try leaving fifty sucklers out over the winter. Il guarantee the cows will have a great coat alright and you'll want one yourself but calves lying in ploughed up fields of muck would prefer taking the chance of a scour to get a warm bed for a few nights.


  • #18
    patsy_mccabe
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,391 ✭✭✭✭patsy_mccabe


    Take a drive through the Burren in the middle of winter. You might take a different view.


  • #19
    Miname
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,984 ✭✭✭Miname


    patsy_mccabe wrote: »
    Take a drive through the Burren in the middle of winter. You might take a different view.

    The burren is one area in Ireland. It's not an argument for the rest of the farming community. How does it pay to sacrifice a years production on good ground just because of the lack of a shed. Ground is too expensive not to be making the most of it.


  • #20
    Grueller
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,447 ✭✭✭Grueller


    Farming part time the last thing I want is to arrive home in the black dark and pishing rain like this evening to start hauling bales through slop out to round feeders and looking for that cow that didn't come to the feeder with a flashlamp.
    No way could I do without sheds. Disease can be managed reasonably well by not overstocking sheds and I also let all autumn calves creep out to a two acre paddock. Either have no sheds and very lightly stocked or haave enough sheds. Never mind this packing them into sheds lark.


  • #21
    Kovu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    I have to say a few ways we reduced pneumonia in weanlings & scour in the shed to almost nil by
    1) Cleaning the vents every spring, you would not believe the filth that blocks them up.
    2) Putting all weanlings in the top pen at the sliding door and leaving it open with the creepfeeder there so air blows in the top over it.
    3)Calving out of the pens in a secure dry pen, with no draught getting in. Then bedding the lying area in the shed and not allowing cows back, calf learns to use the weanling gate to go in/out. Bedding stays dry.

    In other words, common sense!


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  • #22
    Limestone Cowboy
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,634 ✭✭✭Limestone Cowboy


    patsy_mccabe wrote: »
    Take a drive through the Burren in the middle of winter. You might take a different view.

    Different countryside here in fairness, I wouldn't leave cows on the good land during the winter either. Doesn't make any difference having them around the rocks and bushes for the winter because it isint good for much else. I try and save a bit of grass on the driest of the good land and run a handful of handyish weanlings on it though. They do mighty over the winter with a few kilo's of meal without ploughing the place and when they hit the Mart next March surrounded by cattle covered in sh1t after coming out of sheds they are very saleable. If they are standing in muck outside they get perished looking though, need dry ground for it to work.


  • #23
    keep going
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,551 ✭✭✭keep going


    ive 35 weanlings running over nearly 40(less than 30 grass) acres including rock at the moment and they are flying it.feeding kilo and half of rolled barley and no silage.reckon ill get at least until new years day out of it but could be more and they will come off it then until maybe first week in april.50 kg s of rolled barley costing 10 e aday so cheap wintering.ive done with cows as well and it s the work that catches you,no bother when they were dry but it torture to get cows near calving or after calving:( out.


  • #24
    Birdnuts
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,918 ✭✭✭Birdnuts


    I guess it depends on your landtype and size of farm. Couldn't do without a shed on my place in North Mayo as ground is bottomless at this time of year and the only drier fields I have are kept for the sheep. I'm on a North facing coast too so no decent shelter to be had for larger stock


  • #25
    Base price
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 11,656 ✭✭✭✭Base price


    barnaman wrote: »
    Depends on how many cattle you have firstly and land type secondly. All good points about health cattle and wondering wheither to bother building a shed in 2016 or not. If you have a 200 cattle sheds are a necessity.
    Actually IMO it depends on how good a livestock manager you are and how hard you are prepared to work.
    I know a dairy farmer who milks over 250 cows and winters them out on kale and an stand off pad.
    Another full time farmer produces 20 odd cracking weanlings from his farm of less than 50 iffy/marginal acres.
    We normally rear 250 to 300 calves every year and followers on slightly over 100 acres with limited accommodation - mostly old stone sheds.


  • #26
    CloughCasey1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,742 ✭✭✭CloughCasey1


    patsy_mccabe wrote: »
    Take a drive through the Burren in the middle of winter. You might take a different view.

    We're not all as lucky as LC. Id say every drop of rain is swallowed up in an instant. We have good ground here and this is only second yr of our straw shed but the amount of time and waste saved is unreal. Also the wet yrs stock went back to fook and looked miserable out. They are lying in the straw in front of me here stretched out as if it was a summers evening with the sun on their backs.


  • #27
    20silkcut
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,734 ✭✭✭20silkcut


    Miname wrote: »
    Once you build a shed you'll never go back. This craic of ploughing fields drawing bales and searching for animals with a flash lamp just doesn't work especially if your land spends the next four months trying to repair itself . All well and good leaving a couple of light weanlings out but try leaving fifty sucklers out over the winter. Il guarantee the cows will have a great coat alright and you'll want one yourself but calves lying in ploughed up fields of muck would prefer taking the chance of a scour to get a warm bed for a few nights.

    All of the above is obvious and I never suggested leaving cattle out on the land.

    It's just the sheds I want to do away with.

    Cattle would be just as happy on a concrete slab with minimal shelter than a big enclosed shed.

    It's the regulations that force us to roof such areas but from an animal welfare point of view topless is better.


  • #28
    Bullocks
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,893 ✭✭✭Bullocks


    20silkcut wrote: »
    All of the above is obvious and I never suggested leaving cattle out on the land.

    It's just the sheds I want to do away with.

    Cattle would be just as happy on a concrete slab with minimal shelter than a big enclosed shed.

    It's the regulations that force us to roof such areas but from an animal welfare point of view topless is better.

    Don't know how happy they would be on a concrete slab , maybe rubber mats under them or wood chip to keep them warm but not bare concrete . On dry parts of the country I'd say go for it but here in the west with longer wetter winters it wouldn't be for me , I've had enough of driving through gutter up to the front axle throwing out a bale !


  • #29
    duckduck1991
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 42 ✭duckduck1991


    Ah sur be Jeyus we all need an ould shed for the cattle


  • #30
    _Brian
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,980 ✭✭✭✭_Brian


    20silkcut wrote: »
    All of the above is obvious and I never suggested leaving cattle out on the land.

    It's just the sheds I want to do away with.

    Cattle would be just as happy on a concrete slab with minimal shelter than a big enclosed shed.

    It's the regulations that force us to roof such areas but from an animal welfare point of view topless is better.


    I don't know.. In the spring we would have the slatted shed door open to get them used to being outside..
    Even though the yard is very sheltered they always go into the slats to lie for the night or during the day if its raining..

    I think in cold wet weather being out 24*7 on concrete yard would get dirty and miserable, being cold is one thing, but cold and wet and there is no way cattle are thriving. You'd end with alot of stock finishing the winter at the same weight they started and that's no good.. By the time you've enough shelter provided so they aren't cold and wet its what we call a shed, a huge concrete floor shed, now slats are looking like a good option in this shed !!

    If you had a yard big enough for 50 - 100 head of stock the run off would be shocking, imagine the weekend gone by it would take some storage to get past 5 months rain on this yard.

    And as part-timers its great comfort to have stock in for feeding on these dark windy wet nights, it makes a pleasure of the job especially rather than the drudgery of stock being out in a field at feeders.


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  • #31
    Cavanjack
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,805 ✭✭✭Cavanjack


    Base price wrote: »
    Actually IMO it depends on how good a livestock manager you are and how hard you are prepared to work.
    I know a dairy farmer who milks over 250 cows and winters them out on kale and an stand off pad.
    Another full time farmer produces 20 odd cracking weanlings from his farm of less than 50 iffy/marginal acres.
    We normally rear 250 to 300 calves every year and followers on slightly over 100 acres with limited accommodation - mostly old stone sheds.
    Some going rearing that number of calves. What age do you sell them at?


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