This is a subscriber-only article
Wednesday 16 October 2019 was a very significant date on this farm. It marked the opening of the doors of the new 140-cow cubicle shed, a long-awaited event.
The cows had spent the last month ploughing through muddy conditions in the torrential rains, as we waited for the builders to finish a project 18 months overdue.
Within 20 minutes of opening the doors, 75% of cows were in and lying down, grunting and cudding.
“You’ve obviously got the dimensions right,” remarked my neighbour, who had brought his straw shredder for the initial bedding up.
“How do you reckon that?” I asked
“Because a cow should lie down within two minutes of entering the cubicle."
Proud
I felt extremely proud as I surveyed the expanse of cows happily ensconced in their straw beds.
This shed is probably the biggest single investment I have made in my farming career.
It stands on the site of the 46-year-old wooden Challow cubicles and beside the 56 tie-up cow shed which is now calf rearing.
This cowshed was built by my grandmother in 1956. She sold a farm to pay for its construction.
I often wonder what that farm is worth today - a hard lesson in agricultural economics; I certainly couldn’t buy a farm with the £75,000 I paid for this building.
Cubicle beds
The cubicle beds are compacted limestone with a covering of straw. We decided against sand and mattresses, as they were beyond our budget and would mean reducing cow numbers.
If money allowed, I would have gone for 12ft overhangs and open sides to allow better ventilation, but that would have added £12,000 to the already stretched budget, as it would have needed more robust uprights and would have interfered with traffic flow around the outside of the building.
We still have to decide what to do with the central ridge. We’ve increased the roof pitch to 18.5° to aid air flow and widen the central ridge gap to 18in. We have purchased a raised ridge, but have yet to decide to fit it; it will depend on rain blow.
Metal or plastic cubicles
When planning the building, we debated long and hard as to whether to have metal or plastic cubicles.
We eventually chose metal, a decision we came to bitterly regret. There is nothing wrong with the cubicles, but the supply chain was a disaster, causing delays.
On a recent visit to Kingshay Experimental Farm where they have half-metal and half-plastic cubicles, the herdsman reckoned the cows showed no preference for one or the other, but possibly spent longer in the plastic cubicles, perhaps because they were more comfortable.
He maintained one hour’s extra lying was worth 1.7l of milk, but further discussion with the farm manager made the point that the metal cubicles were head-to-head, but the plastic faced the open feed passage, where there was no challenge from the opposite cow. He was intending to exchange some metal for plastic and monitor the results.
Straw
As the neighbour and Steve, who does the yard work, and I stood watching, while the cows happily grunted and cudded, we discussed the merits of chopped straw, shredded straw, or manually putting in wads of big bale straw.
Although Steve would be the one do the manual work, he still favoured the wad approach.
Brexit
Boris is still behaving like a petulant schoolboy who can’t get his own way.
Unfortunately, he imagines calling a general election will solve his problems, but he doesn’t realise how much his shenanigans have damaged the grass roots of his party, some of whom will never ever vote for him again.
SHARING OPTIONS: