UCD Lyons constructs state-of-the-art calf housing and research facilities

The new University College Dublin (UCD) Lyons Dairy Calf Education and Research facility will be dual purpose, serving the farm’s calf-housing needs as well as providing some ground-breaking research content.

UCD Lyons has been operating as a research and learning facility for the students of the agriculture and veterinary schools since the early 1960s, when the university purchased 485ha of land and began developing the farm on the Dublin/Kildare border at the foot of the Hill of Lyons.

Now encompassing 250ha of beef, sheep, dairy and tillage enterprises, the farm has continued to invest in facilities for the past six decades, with the new jewel in the Lyons Farm being it’s new dairy calf research and education facility.

Professor Karina Pierce and Dr Alan Kelly have been two of the main driving forces behind the new state-of-the-art calf shed, which will perform the dual role of providing high welfare accommodation for the 180-cow high-EBI dairy herd progeny, as well as being a fully integrated system around research regarding the critical first six months of a calf’s life.

Floor plan

The building itself measures 38.2 metres in length spanning six 6.4-metre-wide bays, with a total width of 27.3 metres to give a gross floor area of 1,042.9m². There are five large calf pens, with additional individual crates, training pens, kitchen area and work areas, with the building having a capacity to bring 180 calves from birth to six months.

UCD Lyons director, Eddie Jordan, who played a key role in the design, spoke at the official launch of the new facility on Tuesday.

“Calves enter the roller door at the gable end of the shed, where there are 20 isolation cribs for newborn calves,” he said. “There, they receive colostrum and transition milk, which is part of our Johne’s control programme. From there, calves will move to pen 1, which is a small training pen [for the automatic calf feeder] before moving to the larger pens.’’

Feeding

In terms of feeding the calves, the shed has been fitted with two JFC Evolution S4 calf feeders, with the capacity for up to four different powders to be used across the machines. There are six feed stations in total; one in the training pen and one in each of the larger five pens. For the moment, calves are split between two different powders, with dairy heifers and beef calves fed separately.

Tailored feeding curves can be created using the JFC Evolution feeder for each calf, with calves receiving a set amount of milk within an eight-hour period.

Space and penning

Eddie explained: “This shed is allowing our calves approximately double the recommended lying space for calves.”

The reason for this is because the farm is regulated by the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), meaning a higher demand for comfort and space. It also future proofs the farm.

Each pen measures 6.4 metres wide by 13.95 metres deep. The 13.95 metres comprise 10.2 metres deep of a straw-bedded lieback area, with 3.75 metres of a slatted/solid-floor area to the front. This gives a gross pen area of 89.28m². Department recommendations list 1.7m² of pen space/calf for calves up to 32 weeks of age, meaning, in reality, each pen is capable of holding 52 calves, though the actual usage will be closer to 30, which will line up to the capacity of the automatic calf feeder stations.

The lieback area has been cambered towards the slatted area to the front, with a removable timber separating straw from slats. The straw-bedded area is well serviced with two electric roller doors, with calves easily locked in to the slatted area for cleaning out.

A noted feature of the shed is the heavier-than-normal calf penning gates.

This goes back to the farm’s obligations under the HPRA, but will also allow for alternatives uses, such as trial work on calves up to 12 months, should it be required.

A 10ft 6in slat has been installed to the front of the lieback area, with a 3.2 metres-deep tank located underneath and Easifix rubber mats overlayed on them. This, again, future proofs the farm for alternative uses of the facility, as well as reducing labour, increasing slurry storage on farm and increasing animal welfare with the rubber matting.

Each pen is also serviced by a small rear door, which will give access to calves to an outdoor woodchip pad, with calf welfare again acknowledged by this.

Technology and research capacity

“This is a state-of-the-art research facility that will allow us to ultimately cover everything in relation to dairy calf development and rearing, early-life calf growth, feeding and nutrition combined with dairy calf health and welfare,” Alan Kelly explained.

“The facility has been equipped with cutting-edge precision agriculture technologies.

“We can monitor every movement from intake, nutritional programming, behaviour and health of the calf right through from newborn through to post-weaning,” he said.

“Traits of interest from a research perspective are feed intake and behaviour, feed efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions, with this being the first facility worldwide that will characterise GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions in the early life calf or developing ruminant. This facility has the capacity for 180 calves, from birth through to five months of the animal’s life.

“With the system being integrated with the dairy and dairy beef herds, essentially any intervention made at the calf stage can be looked at immediately from growth and performance but can also be looked at long term and tracked through in terms of lifetime animal productivity, farm profitability and environmental footprint,” Kelly said.

As well as the JFC Evolution feeders, bespoke solid feeding technology has been installed that allows for up to four different concentrates formulation or combination to be fed, be it textured or untextured concentrates, at different allocation amounts, allowing feed intake and conversion rates to be analysed.

Up to four different forage types (hay, haylage etc) can also be allocated, with intakes, calf preferences and associated performance all recorded.

The farm has also tagged calves using a new product to the market from one of the partners in the project, MSD Ireland, with the SenseHub Dairy Youngstock electronic tag used to monitor animal health from birth to 12 months of age, to monitor, health, activity and behaviour”

Other key features

Air inlet spacing has been created with Yorkshire boarding around all four sides of the shed, giving ample fresh air without the creation of draughts, with a raised central canopy acting as the air outlet spacing. Euronit 0.6mm sheeting has been used on the roof, with PVC-coated purlins also spec’d. Each bay contains four reinforced clear rooflights, giving ample natural light to the shed, while LED lighting has been fitted throughout.

There is ample access to all working and pen areas through roller doors and pedestrian doors, with a useful kitchen area also installed. A portal frame construction allows for alternative uses in the future, while the raised pedestrian platform over the work area reduces stress and disease pressure to calves from visitors. The finish of the shed is second to none, with a hat tip going to the main contractor Donnelly Civil Engineering.

As was noted by Alan and Karina, the facility is now the key piece of the puzzle in UCD Lyons. Not only will it be the first worldwide facility to measure GHG emissions and feed efficiency from the young developing calves, and have the ability to monitor the dietary effect on these emissions, but the ability to monitor the implications of calf health and diet on the adult animal, with beef animals being slaughtered from the farm and dairy heifers entering the milking herd, will also be a unique aspect of the project.

Credit must be given to Alan, Karina and the rest of the UCD team for pressing on and seeing the facility come to fruition, but also to the partners in project; ABP, Dairy Research Ireland, FBD Trust, MSD, JFC and Ornua, as without their backing, facilities like these cannot be created.