A Norwegian slaughter bull (almost all of the country’s male cattle are produced as bulls) will command a carcase price of around €7.50/kg and benchmark net margin per cow figure is €1,500. Of this, €500 is in the form of subsidies from a government eager to protect its farmers from international competition – Norway is outside the customs union. Many of these are linked to performance and this has incentivised good levels of technical efficiency across the country.

A combination of healthy profits and long cold winters means that a typical beef farmer doesn’t skimp when erecting new animal housing. Father and son combination Ole Aksel and Anders Gronnerud, who keep suckler cows on the outskirts of Kongsvinger, certainly didn’t.

They keep 72 sucklers, bringing all progeny through to beef. The herd calves in the spring and bulls are brought to slaughter at 15 months, with a target carcase weight of 400kg. This winter, he erected a state-of-the-art cow shed, allowing him to house his dry cows, calve and house young calves under one roof.

Cost

The shed cost approximately €520,000 all-in. Of this, around €70,000 was grant-aided by the government. A 4.5m wide central feed passage splits the 45m x 28m building. On either side of this there are single dry cow pens which are fitted with 36 cubicles, a small creep area and two calving pens on each side. In the initial weeks of lactation, before cattle can get to grass, calves will use the creep area behind the calving pens and have access to the cubicle pens to suckle as they desire.

Slats

By law, female cattle cannot be housed on slats in Norway. Some other interesting points of note – livestock farms must have the capacity for 12 months of manure storage in Norway, and the closed period for slurry spreading runs from 1 November to 1 April. These must all be considered when designing a new shed.

Climate control system

There are electric roller access doors at each end of the feed passage. The shed is 2.8m high to the eaves and 8.5m to the roof ridge, where one of the most fascinating aspects of the building lies. The shed has an automatic climate control system. Mechanically controlled flaps along the roof’s central ridge and curtain walls suspended from motorised pulleys work to control the building’s internal temperature. When we visited in late January, the Gronnerud’s had it set to 4°C.

As a rough guide, when the outdoor temperature is a few degrees below negative the curtains will sit halfway open. Once the air temperature creeps above zero, they will adjust to be fully open. “When an adjustment is necessary, the walls and flaps take 300 seconds to adjust,” Anders told me.

The temperature in the shed is regulated by mechanically-controlled flaps along the roof’s central ridge and suspended curtain walls along the side of the shed.

On top of the climate control system, there is a water heating system throughout the shed. Given the harsh winters – the -2°C temperature on the day we visited was described to us as ‘mild’ – the heating system ensures there aren’t any mishaps involving frozen pipes and water troughs.

Another interesting aspect of the shed’s design is the lighting system. There are both LED and blue lights installed along the roof. The LED lights are on for 14 hours daily, with the blue ‘night lights’ coming on for the other 10 hours. The transition from the bright LED to the dull blue lights is gradual – designed to mimic the dawn-dusk transition in an outdoor scenario. Research shows that this causes minimal disruption to the animal’s natural rhythm and thus helps to optimise performance.

Safety was paramount when the Gronnerud’s were designing the building, with multiple escape points on from the cubicle pens. All of the calving pens contain head-locking gates too and there are first aid kits on-site.

Safety in the shed is key, with multiple escape points.

There are scrapers running along each aisle, operating every couple of hours. On the cubicles themselves, the Gronneruds say it has been a learning process for both the cows and themselves.

“This shed has only been in operation for two weeks and before this our cows were on straw beds. As you can see, they are a bit dirty – they have not yet taken to the idea of using the cubicles and are instead lying in the aisles. Some are lying across half the cubicle. In fact, the younger cows are accepting the cubicles the quickest. Perhaps they have had less time to develop other habits,” Anders said.

All cubicle and creep areas are fitted with swinging cow brushes for cow comfort.

“We tried to put straw down on the cubicles to encourage them to lie, but we actually ended up having problems with our scraper system then as the dung channels were blocking up. At the moment we are applying lime to the cubicles every second day. The cubicles have been one of our teething problems. Another was the fact that we built the shed in the depths of a cold winter, even by Norway’s standards. That meant that the concrete floor was as cold as ice when the cattle came into it. It has only really warmed up now (two weeks later). It meant that the animals took time to settle down,” he continued.

There are two calving pens in place in the shed along with a creep area for calves.

When calves start coming and moving between the cubicle and calf creep areas, the scrapers will be turned off and the Gronneruds will manually clean the cow pens daily.

Each cubicle pen has a swinging cow brush, with miniature versions also fitted to each calf creep area. Once calving has finished, the two calving pens at either side of the feed passage can be opened up to increase the size of the calf creep area, which will be bedded with barley straw.

Self-locking feed barriers have been installed along the feed passage in both cubicle pens.

By law female cattle are not permitted to be housed on slats in Norway. Slurry storage must also be available for 12 months.

The Gronnerud’s idea is that one bull can run with 36 cows either side of the feed passage. At present they have two stock bulls, a Simmental and a Charolais. They are hesitant to put any more cows to the bull as they’re keen to keep the calving season relatively tight. However, the cubicle pens have been designed larger than required, with potential to fit more cubicles in future. Should this happen the head-lock feed barriers will facilitate the use of AI, keeping pressure off the stock bulls.

“In hindsight we made the cubicle pens too big and the feeding passage too narrow – I would’ve liked a 5m feed passage. That being said, we have left ourselves the option to expand the building further in the future. The shed is located in an open area of our yard and we have left ourselves with the option of opening up outdoor creep areas for our calves, or even expanding the current building outward,” Ole Aksel said.

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