As a country that bases its livestock model on utilising grazed grass, farm roadways are the connective ribbons that link up the paddock system that we so favour today in Ireland across beef, dairy and sheep enterprises. Good farm roadways are an essential piece of kit in the grazing tool belt of grass-based farmers.

Benefits of good roads

A well-designed, carefully built and properly maintained farm roadway system has many benefits; reduced lameness, better general animal health, faster and easier movement of stock, greater grass utilisation due to increased paddock access and the prevention of run off to dry ditches or watercourses.

For dairy farms, additional benefits include reduced levels of mastitis, cleaner cows and lower SCC. For better herd management, consideration can be given to widening the road at the entrance to the farmyard in the form of a Y shape, to improve movement of livestock and reduce dunging.

With the maintenance of roads close to the farmyard (a high-traffic area) a difficult task, the Department states that concreting a section of the roadway close to yard is ‘sensible’, although this can create issues surrounding lameness. Small stones dragged on to the concrete from gravelled areas can be pushed up into the cow’s hoof, as the only give between a cow’s hoof and a concrete road will evidently not be the concrete.

For this reason, sweeping of the concrete area to ensure it’s free of stones, or adding a kerb to encourage stones to drop off cow’s hooves, may be required. While it may not always be possible, the positioning of new roadways adjacent to watercourses should be avoided. However, where a new farm roadway way runs adjacent to a stream, a fence on both sides of the roadway shall be erected to ensure livestock cannot access the water.

Construction

All topsoil and soft material should be excavated, per Department guidelines, to a minimum depth of 150mm or down to a solid stratum, with the excavated material suitably disposed. New farm roadways should be laid in good weather when soil conditions are dry, primarily to ensure that the roadway material does not mix or get pressed into soft soil where a geotextile membrane is not used. The finished level of the roadway should be above the level of the field to allow the road to drain off.

Removing water off the roadway quickly will extend the life of the surface and reduce the cost of maintenance mainly through removing the likelihood of potholes developing. To remove water quickly from roadways, they should slope to one or both sides, with a slope of 1:25/2.3° recommended.

A roadway that slopes to one side is easier to construct, however livestock flow is generally better on roads that have a gentle camber from the centre to each side. However, where there is a risk of runoff into any watercourses, the cambering of slopes from the centre of the road must not be adopted, with the camber to be constructed that soiled water is directed towards the field and not the water course.

Roadways on steeply sloping ground can be subjected to a stream of water running the length of a section of roadway during heavy rainfall, which can damage the surface of the road through removing finer material and exposing the rougher aggregate underneath. In this situation, angled ramps (to prevent build-up of soiled water on the roadway), shallow channels or cut-off drains at intervals across the roadway will divert water off the road before it builds up volume and momentum that could possibly be damaging.

Surface layer

The roadway shall be completed with about 25-50mm of a fine material on the surface. If the surface is poor most of the benefits of having a farm roadway are gone.

The surface layer shall be laid evenly and compacted, to produce a uniform surface. Spread it out to the slope formed in the foundation layer. Many different types of fine material can be used for the surface layer , eg, shale dust, quarry dust, etc.

Roadway width

The width of roadways depends on the number of livestock in the herd. Guidance on standard sizes is given in Table 1. The fence should be positioned about 0.5m from the edge of the roadway. This will allow livestock to utilise the full width, while at the same time prevent them from walking along the grass margin.

Dairy farms using automatic milking systems (AMS or ‘robotic milking’) can ignore this table, as cows will not travel in the mobs typically seen with conventional milking. A cow track in the grass margin usually means that the fence is too far from the roadway edge and/or the surface of the roadway is too rough. Cows should be evenly spread out across the working width of the road when being moved.