Recently we featured a silage pit that was retrofitted with penning to accommodate calf rearing when the silage in the pit was used up in the spring.

This was an ideal example of what can be done on farms to improve the use of existing facilities. Sometimes, however, new sheds have to be built on farms where there are no existing facilities in place or expansion of an enterprise is being made.

A new build is a prime opportunity to design a shed that will cater for different needs during the year. There is no point spending thousands on a building that will only be used for three weeks annually. For example, calf-rearing sheds should be built to have several different uses to best utilise the investment.

This week we feature a newly erected multipurpose shed in Munster that is suitable for calving cows, rearing calves and machinery storage. The shed was built by Declan Fennell Contracting Ltd of Cooraclare, Co Clare. The farmer is expanding dairy cow numbers and wanted a shed that will help take some of the associated labour out of calving and calf rearing, but also have other uses.

Pictures one and two

The three-bay shed was completed a fortnight ago. It is 40ft wide and 47ft long. The shed is 11ft high at the eaves and 15ft high at the canopy. It was built on the side of a hill and the 8in mass concrete walls range from 9ft high to 6ft high depending on the side of the hill they are on. Fibre cement sheeting was used for the roof (which limits condensation) and normal vented sheeting was used on the side of the shed. There is a large canopy on top to allow air flow. The front of the shed is north-facing and fully open, which ensures the shed is not stuffy and is unlikely to be affected by rain blowing in or draughts. There is scope to erect a wind breaker on the front of the shed in the future if required.

Pictures three and four

Inside, there are six pens. Each pen is about 14ft 3in wide x 15ft 3in long. The farmer has only started using the pens now for rearing calves and has not calved a cow in it yet. He feels it is early days to judge the shed but he is very happy with the way it turned out so far. He plans on putting 10 calves in a pen and straw bedding regularly. The central passage is 9ft wide and there are two drainage channels either side that take the dirty water coming from the pens. The drainage channels were made from 6in sewer pipe with 1in of plastic cut from the top of the pipe (picture four).

Once laid, the pipe created a channel and angle iron was placed inside the pipe to ensure its shape stayed intact. The drainage pipes go through the back wall and lead into an existing slurry tank where the dirty water is collected. There is a 6in fall from the front of the shed to the back and there is a fall of 4in from the side walls towards the drainage channels at the central passage.

As mentioned earlier, the site was not level and Declan said parts of it were wet. He had to use 10 loads of 4in hard core to build up the site and this was blinded off with a load of 804. This stone came from Martin Kelly quarries, Doonbeg, Co Clare. Special 8393 reinforcing mesh was put down and 5in to 6in of 37N concrete was laid for the floors.

Picture five

All the penning was supplied from Condon Engineering, Co Louth. There are four calving gates in total but each gate can be used in two pens. There are also six single headlocking barriers in each pen.

Many of you reading are probably wondering why there are headlocking barriers in these pens if they are already kitted out with calving gates. The reason is, without the single feeding barrier, there would be no place to feed a cow silage.

The farmer was going to just have a gate the length of the pen, but Declan suggested that adding a single headlocking barrier in each would allow space for a cow to get her head to the central passage for silage and she could be easily handled if needs be with the locking barrier. Otherwise, the farmer would have to fork silage or hay over the gate into a trough inside.

All the gates are swinging and can be opened up to allow pens to be easily cleaned out with a tractor. Each day or whenever a chance arises the farmer plans on cleaning out and disinfecting pens after calving and bedding them again with fresh straw.

The water troughs in the pens are a little too high for calves but the farmer said he will either build a makeshift ramp to help the calves drink or add lower troughs at the back of the pen. All-in-all the shed is perfect for calving and calf-rearing. The farmer says he will open up the gates during the summer and use the shed for storing machinery or straw.

TAMS II

Many agricultural consultants told the Irish Farmers Journal that calving and calf-rearing sheds were popular investment items in applications for the second tranche of TAMS II. In table one, we set out the cost of a typical three-bay calving and calf-rearing shed like the one featured in this article. Many farmers will be applying for grant aid for similar sheds through TAMS II.

In the table the approximate costs of this shed (excluding the extra hardcore required) are shown and the likely grant aid available for general farmer applicants applying successfully or young trained farmers applying by themselves for TAMS II funding is also shown in the table. These costings were supplied by Declan Fennell and are only an example of what it might cost, a full list of reference costings is available on the Department’s website for all possible TAMS II investments.