A new slatted shed was recently constructed on the pedigree Feenagh Angus herd of Oliver Haugh who farms at Feenagh just outside of Lisseycasey in Co Clare. Oliver only began farming in 2010 and has been in rapid expansion mode since then.

One hundred and fifty pedigree Angus cows are due to calve down on the farm this spring with this expected to increase to 220 cows next year. The decision was made to develop the Angus herd on the farm for a few reasons according to Oliver.

“I couldn’t run this size of a herd efficiently if I was using continental breeds on the farm. There were a few reasons I chose Angus, the land around here and the weather conditions would not suit heavy cows.

“Also Angus cows are easier to manage around calving and need very little assistance while the longevity of the cows also appealed to me.”

Calving began on 1 January this year and will run until April, however Oliver intends to pull this back next year, to begin calving in December. A small suckler enterprise had been run on the farm before Oliver took over but this was not sustainable.

“I had a decision to make at the time,” according to Oliver.

“I either had to stay very small and work on the farm part time or go large enough to be at the stage where I could employ somebody to work on the farm.”

Ultimately the latter was chosen. Noel Keating was employed on the farm as the farm manager to look after the day-to-day running of the herd. Oliver’s father Michael is also involved in the running of the farm.

The aim is to export the majority of the breeding heifers with heifers already having gone to Kazakhstan and Spain. This demand for breeding stock was one of the reasons that Oliver chose to expand to such a scale.

The hope is that a market for the bulls will come from expanding dairy herds in Ireland.

Pictures one and two

The shed is designed to hold suckler cows both before and after calving with a large number of dry and slatted pens in the shed. The shed was designed in four identical quarters, which allowed the shed to be completed in sections with work originally beginning in 2015. The first half of the shed was completed in 2016 with the remaining half built in 2017.

The second half of the shed still requires minor work to calving pens to have it fully functional. However, the aim is to have this finished in the coming weeks as more cows begin to calve down. The shed is an impressive 13 bays long measuring a total of 62.8m while it is 35.8m wide.

Each quarter of the shed is identical as seen in Figure 1, and is made up of eight slatted pens of 4.8m x 4.8m in an L-shape. There are a further five dry pens to the back of the slatted pens which also measure 4.8m x 4.8m.

Behind these dry pens there is a 4.8m-wide passageway which is used for access to the dry pens. The passageway can be converted to another five dry pens as brackets are fitted to the wall to hold gates. This allows extra calving pens to be erected if needed to cope with the large herd.

Pictures three and four

In total there are 32 slatted pens in the shed. Slatted tanks in the shed are 8ft deep and are covered with 14’6” slats. Dry pens are used as calving pens and subsequently as creep pens for calves. A large 7m-wide feed passage runs down the centre of the shed while a smaller 5.2m wide feed passage also runs across the width of the shed.

All pens along the central feed passage are fitted with lockable feed barriers, however the pens along the smaller feed passage are fitted with adjustable straight bars.

“I really like the lockable feed barriers but the bars along these pens give bigger capacity,” Oliver said, “the lockable feed barriers work well for the cows as they will always have silage in front of them but if you are feeding younger stock meal you want them all to be able to eat together.”

Picture five

There are currently no doors fitted on the shed with all openings fitted with a gate. This was done to encourage a good airflow through the shed.

If the openings at either end of the back passageways in the shed prove to be causing too much of a draught then Oliver intends to fit these with doors. However, as this will be the first calving period with the shed fully complete he is still waiting to see how the shed functions.

The roof of the shed is fitted with spaced cement fibre sheeting which eliminated the need for a ridge cap in accordance with the Department of Agriculture specifications. Both sides of the shed are fitted with vented sheeting from the 2.7m walls right up to the 5m eaves. At its highest point the shed stands at 10.4m ensuring a large cubic air capacity which helps reduce the disease pressure on cattle.

Picture six

The calving pens are fitted with a lockable feed barrier head gate and a separate calving head gate. These can be easily opened if cows go down unlike the lockable feed barrier type gate. A calving gate is not present in every pen, with several moveable ones fitted throughout the shed.

As an Angus herd is run calving gates do not have to be used often as cows will predominantly calve unassisted. There are four cameras fitted in the shed to monitor the calving pens.

“The cows are quiet anyway but having the lockable head gate in each pen really makes cleaning out around cows a lot safer,” Noel Keating said.

Picture seven

The crush is not conventional, measuring 24m in length. Each gate of the crush can be opened out to make a calving pen if necessary.

The water troughs hanging on the wall can then be taken down and hung on a bracket on the gate.

The shed is also in the process of being joined up to a spring on Oliver’s land which will provide a gravity-flow water system.

The total cost of the project came to approximately €300,000 plus VAT. The first half of the project was carried out with the help of a TAMS II grant. Oliver received 60% grant aid up to the €80,000 investment ceiling as he qualifies as a young farmer. This means he received a grant of €48,000. The entire shed was carried out to Department specifications.

Christopher Keane carried out all sitework for the project including groundwork, erecting the shed and barriers among other work. The gates and barriers were supplied by a combination of Teemore Engineering and Carey Agri. Fogarty concrete supplied the slats for the shed while the concrete came from Ryan’s quarry.

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