Work has nearly finished on a new six-bay sheep shed on the farm of Pierce Harte who farms near Galmoy, Co Kilkenny. The shed is built to house Pierce’s flock of 200 ewes which are due to lamb down from 17 March onwards. Opposite the sheep shed the decision was made to construct a six-bay shed to store straw and an additional single-bay purpose-built grain store. Pierce took over the farm from his father Billy seven years ago and made the decision to switch to organic production. A 60-cow strong suckler herd is also run on the farm along with a small tillage operation, both of which are organic. Pierce is helped on the farm by his uncle Lotty Harte.
As the farm is organic a lot of straw is needed to bed both cattle and sheep. In turn, this farmyard manure is a vital component of the farms fertiliser requirements as no chemical fertiliser is permitted to be used for organic production.
The sheds
While joining up the two sheds was an option, Pierce decided to leave a gap between them as he wanted to ensure good air movement through the shed to reduce disease pressure on sheep.
“When we changed to organic we had to alter other sheds to install straw lay-backs for the cattle and we also improved the ventilation in the shed. Between the better ventilation and the lower stocking rate the reduction in the incidences of pneumonia was massive. So with this shed I wanted to have a good airflow too,” said Pierce.
“It’s hard to know how the ventilation will work out before we have anything in the shed,” he added.
The six-bay sheep shed is 9.35m wide with a 1.8m over-hang, while it is 28m long. The straw and grain shed is 7.8m wide, again with a 1.8m over-hang. This shed has seven bays with a total length of 32.8m. Both sheds have a roof pitch of 15º. A 7.6m concrete passageway is in place between the front stanchions of the two sheds, while the gap between the two roofs is 3.6m. At the apex, the sheep shed stands at 7.2m while the straw shed is 6.8m high. They are approximately 4m high at the eaves. A 125mm concrete floor is in place throughout the sheds and feeding passage.
A concrete tank was also constructed outside of the sheep shed to collect run-off from both the shed and passageway between the two sheds.
Pens
The sheep shed was built onto an existing round roof shed to take advantage of the individual lambing pens that were in place, in this shed. The total floor space of the new sheep shed is 290m2.
The shed is not an exact rectangle with four of the pens measuring 9.35m long by 4.8m wide. The other two pens are 12.4m long by 4.8m wide.
To the back of the new sheep shed is an existing four-bay round roof sheep shed that has two dry pens and two individual lambing pens. Sheep will be housed in the coming days as preparations now turn towards the busy lambing period. The limiting factor on the larger pens will be feeding space, however Pierce does not see this as an issue with current flock numbers.
The shed is bright and airy with transparent roof sheeting in place in every pen. Safety bars are in place under each of the roof lights, as per the TAMS specifications. As the shed is wider than 7.5m the requirement is to have three transparent sheets per 4.8m length of the shed (per bay). Another option would have been to use spaced sheeting for the entire roof as this would have omitted the need for translucent sheets.
Bedding
The decision to construct a large straw shed on the farm was due to the farm’s high demand for straw bedding as all organically produced cattle must have access to a straw lay-back. According to Pierce approximately 300 round straw bales are used on the farm every year. In addition to the six-bay straw shed a single-bay grain store was also erected. This allows Pierce to store his own grain on the farm in the years that he sows tillage which is only carried out in rotation with red clover which is used for silage production. When it comes to sourcing organic meal, it can be very difficult according to Pierce.
“If you are going to a merchant looking for organic meal you need to plan well in advance as it can be difficult to source. This way I can get 20t of meal delivered and not have to worry about the difficulties of trying to source meal every few weeks.”
The grain store measures 7.6m by 4.8m with a floor space of 36m2.
Cost
The project was completed through the Organic Capital Investment Scheme thread of TAMS. The total cost of the project came to €71,274 plus VAT, which Pierce will be able to claim back. Grant aid of 40% will be available on this which will amount to €28,510 leaving the net cost to Pierce at €42,764. A breakdown of the different costs associated with the different aspects of the two sheds can be seen in Table 1. The entire project was completed by Spahill Construction including all concrete work and erecting the shed. They also fitted the barriers which were supplied by Stanley Engineering Services. Eamonn Hughes, Agricultural Design Service, from Johnstown, Co Kilkenny completed the plans and the TAMS II application for the project.
