Cows have just been housed on the farm of Trevor Boland from Dromard, Co Sligo. They enter into a new four-bay suckler shed that has recently been constructed on the farm, which has been in the pipeline for nearly two years now.

“We were getting tight for accommodation in the other sheds on the farm. It is something I have been thinking about for a few years but it was February 2017 when I started thinking about it seriously and got plans drawn up,” Trevor explains.

The planning application was made in June 2017 when a final design was decided on with an application made through Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) in September of the same year. Work finally began on the site in the spring of 2018.

“There are some things you just can’t cut time off,” according to Trevor. “You know you will have to give nearly three months for a planning application and the same again for a TAMS application, so there is no point trying to rush these through.

“I knew when we were drawing up the plans in February 2017 that the shed would be done for the winter of 2018.”

Trevor continued: “If a farmer wants a shed to be up for next winter they will be tight to get it done but they should be applying for planning permission now.”

System

The farm runs a complete autumn-calving system which complements Trevor’s full-time off-farm job. “Autumn calving suits my system, it means that I can get calves out to grass in the spring time, even if ground conditions are not good enough to let cows out. It also gives me a stronger calf to sell the following autumn.”

All bull calves are generally sold while some heifers will be kept, either as replacement heifers or for finishing.

“Cows have just gone in after three weeks of AI while still out at grass,” Trevor explains. “The aim would always be to get all cows served while still at grass and then pick up any repeats while they are in the shed. Autumn calving just suits my system better.

“The cost of keeping a cow over the winter doesn’t vary too much. We don’t put any meal to the cows over the winter but it means we do need to make good-quality silage, and this is a major focus on the farm,” Trevor outlines.

The shed

The design is one that will intrigue a lot a suckler farmers planning to invest in facilities over the coming years. One issue that many farmers will have if they have a single-creep area is that you have no place for storage within the shed, or nowhere to isolate an animal if the creep is being used by young calves.

For this design the creep area is split into two separate sections. The section close to the wall is fitted with a crush, while the other is designated solely for calves.

“It is a design that I had in my head for a long time,” explains Trevor, “I went and looked at a few more sheds that had the double creep and I liked it. This way the crush is not taking away from the creep area for calves. If I have a cow for serving then I can put her in the back section of the shed and she won’t be walking all over the straw in the calf creep.”

Trevor continued: “You also have space in the second creep area to hold a bale of straw or meal or whatever else you want to have close to hand.”

The shed is an A-roof design, measuring 19.3m long and 12.9m wide. Height to the eaves is just over 4m with a 15° roof pitch. The apex of the shed rises to 6.4m, not including the ridge cap.

Pens

The slatted pens themselves are a standard 4.8m wide. However, they have a span of 5m, with the decision made to go with larger 16ft 6in slats for the pens to allow for bigger capacity.

“I like for all cows to be able to feed together so now there are eight cows per pen but we could probably fit nine in if we wanted,” according to Trevor. “Right now, we have the 32 cows that have calved, in the shed.”

Internally the tank is 4.7m wide by 2.4m deep, with a length of 21.6m. There are external agitation points on either end of the shed. Net storage capacity in the shed is 223m3.

Creep and crush

The section of the creep with the crush in it is 4m wide, of which the crush takes up 750mm, leaving a width of 3.25m for machinery access. The crush is 9.6m long, fitted with an automatic skulling gate. The back area of the shed can also double up as isolation pens if necessary, broken up into four separate pens.

The other calf creep will be used more so for access with calves having access to fields around the shed throughout the housing period, which also helps to break the cow-calf bond.

This can help to bring cows back into heat that are not yet cycling. The calf creep/access passage is 3.3m wide.

For suckler farmers working full time off-farm, it is important to keep labour required to a minimum, therefore ensuring machinery access to any creep area is vital.

“When deciding on the width of the creep passages it was key to be able to get in with the tractor and box and clean it out,” Trevor says. “You could spend the whole day Saturday scraping out the creep area but there are plenty more jobs to be done so you have to try and keep it as labour efficient as possible.”

Sheeting

Trevor went with the option of putting spaced boarding along the back of the shed as opposed to vented sheeting, a practice more and more farmers are turning towards. “I had a look at the vented sheeting but I didn’t think there was enough air moving through it so I decided to go with the spaced boarding instead,” explains Trevor. “When you have calves in the creep area you want to try and keep the ventilation right and air moving to reduce any chances of pneumonia developing.”

The shed is facing south, with the back of the shed not exposed to the prevailing wind.

Cost

The total cost of the shed came to approximately €68,000 excluding VAT. As Trevor qualifies for the 60% grant, applying as a young farmer he hopes the net cost of the shed will be approximately €27,200, excluding VAT.

The concrete work was carried out by Robert Taylor and Sons, Gurteen while all steelwork was carried out by James Coleman from Newtowngore Engineering.

Slats were supplied by Harrington Concrete. The total cost per cow in the shed is €875. However, as it is an autumn-calving herd the shed also carries 32 calves over the winter meaning that the shed works out at €437/animal. As most of the calves will not spend a second winter on the farm then additional housing is not required for them. If it was a spring-calving herd and weanlings were kept, then it would mean an extra three pens would be needed to hold them.

Moving into the future, one option for Trevor is to finish some of the stronger bulls out of the shed at 14-16 months old before cows would be housed again.