Pat Barron’s farm is in Slane, Co Meath, and he used local suppliers to build this shed and feed store. He went for mats from Crumb Rubber, based in Dromiskin, Co Louth.

Picture one

This was Pat’s new shed when I featured it on these pages three weeks ago. It’s four bays long with slatted pens at the feed face and bedded pens for calves behind. The slats are 12ft 6in but Pat went for a sizeable toe space at the feed face to maximise accommodation. Concrete work by Brian McCabe, steel work by Mooneys of Slane.

Picture two

There are half a dozen suppliers of slat mats on the Irish market, each with their own design and methods of fixing into place. The Crumb Rubber product comes in a standard 2m by 1m size and they have a solid surface – the openings to allow urine and dung drain down into the tank are cut only after the mats are fixed in place.

The mats come with interlocking teeth on the two long sides. During installation, the floor of the shed is covered by adding a row of mats one at a time, each locking to the previous row.

Here, two rows have been laid and a third will be added. The interlocking system consists of a “lock” and “entry”. The lock is bigger than the entry and must be hammered into place with a sledge.

The row closest to the wall will be added last. The fitters have left a gap which is about half an inch shy of 1m. When the final row is hammered into place, that will help keep the whole floor surface rigid.

Pat Barron ordered slat mats for all four slatted pens in his new shed, but as an experiment he also ordered matting for one calf pen, as we see here. The other calf pens will be straw-bedded.

When starting to install mats, the first thing the fitters will do is mark the shed walls with chalk, indicating where the openings between the slat ribs will be. That will allow them cut openings in the mats in the right place – directly above the openings below.

Picture three

The Crumb Rubber mat is 40mm thick, making it one of the deepest mats in use on farms. As a result, the mats are very heavy: each 2m by 1m mat weighs 80kg. That’s too heavy for one man to handle easily. The thickness gives the mats good wear resistance under the hooves of heavy cattle. It also help the mats stay in place when fitted. Crumb Rubber do not use fixing clips or screws across the body of the floor.

Picture four

Once all mats are laid, the fitters will begin cutting the slot openings. They will stretch chalk lines across the floor, using the marks they earlier chalked on the walls. When a chalk line is lifted, it leaves a line of chalk powder behind it. We can see a chalk mark on the wall in the picture. We can also see the dust of a chalk line on the mats in front of the fitter.

The fitter will then begin a slot by drilling a hole in the 40mm rubber mat using a drill bit. He will then insert the blade of a jig saw in the hole and use this to cut out a slot. The slot will be the full width of the opening between the gang slat ribs.

Picture five

The fitter will cut a number of slots along each rib opening. In the middle of a mat he may cut long slots but near the edge he may cut a number of shorter slots, to ensure the mats remain strong . Cutting too many slots would weaken a mat while cutting too few means there would be fewer openings to let down dung and urine. No slots are cut at the point where two mats interlock.

The top surface of the mats is made with grooves. These give grip and the company claims they also help urine and dung to flow to the slots cut by the fitter and therefore help keep the mats clean.

Picture six

The job is finished. The four slatted pens have been matted and the slot openings cut. No drainage slots have been cut in the mats that are laid on the solid toe space at the feed face. No mats have been laid in the calf pens behind the pens we see here – they will be bedded with straw.

Picture seven

The calf pen behind the fourth slatted pen has been matted but, again, no drainage slots have been cut in the mats here.

Picture eight

This shed was completed just before Christmas and cows and calves were waiting to go in. We can see that the cows’ hooves make little impression on the mat surface.

Cost

PAT Barron went for mats to give good comfort to his cows and calves. This week he told me he is pleased with how they are performing. He had mats placed In one calf pen as a trial. He scrapes this onto the slatted area with a hand scraper.

Crumb Rubber operates a tyre recycling business. The firm has been making mats for horse stables for about seven years. It introduced mats for cattle slats at last year’s Ploughing after three years of on-farm trials. The mats have a list price of €48 per square metre, supplied and fitted, and come with a five-year guarantee. A typical slatted pen measuring 4.8m by 5m (16ft x 17ft) and equal to 25 square metres would be priced at just over €1,100 plus VAT, fitted.