For this his week’s Buildings Focus, Agriland made the trip to Boherduff in Co. Galway to speak to father and daughter Kevin and Ciara Callanan about their new cubicle shed.
The duo, which is a registered farm partnership, milks 200 cows, 70 of which were in-milk just before Christmas. In recent years the Callanans have invested quite a bit in infrastructure on the farm, such as a 24-unit parlour and a modern calf shed.
The father-and-daughter team supply 1.2 million litres to Aurivo, which Kevin is a board member of.
Ciara has also recently completed a Dairy Management course in Gurteen Agricultural College.
One other area of the farm that Kevin and Ciara said was lacking was cubicles. Some of their cows were being housed in slatted sheds and the Callanans wanted to move away from this.
Therefore, they went ahead with plans for a new cubicle shed which has came to a finish before Christmas.
Speaking to Agriland inside the new cubicle shed, Kevin said: “We had been improving the infrastructure on the farm in recent years.
“We had actually started by building a calf shed and then moved to building a new milking parlour thereafter, before then cracking into this cubicle.
“As cow numbers grew post-quotas we needed more cubicles. We had cows on slats which isn’t ideal, so we looked at building a new standalone cubicle shed, that would mean every cow [would be] on the farm.
“It would also mean that all youngstock on the farm would be able to be housed as well, as we have had to outwinter cattle on forage crops as well due a lack of housing.”
The cubicle shed
The site which the shed is on was part of a nearby paddocks closest to the yard.
The shed comprises of 124 cubicles, split in half by a centre feed passageway – which is 19ft wide – with 62 cubicles on either side of the passageway.
As the Callanans feed out baled silage and pit to their cows, having the extra width with the passageway will give them more room to manoeuvre.
Furthermore, given the width of the passageway, the option down the line of diet feeding is there, with an entry point to the shed at either end of the passageway.
And, there is still space to drive back down either side of the shed into the main yard.
Kevin and Ciara were not sold by the idea of having feed space on three sides of the shed, and rather have a centre feed passageway, with weather elements from the north posing a threat to a colder environment in the shed.
The shed itself is 140ft long and 100ft wide. The entire floor area where the cubicles are is slatted.
The slats are grooved to improve grip with a half a metre of a concrete lip left between the slats and the feed barriers.
Due to the sheer length of the shed, the Callanans incorporated a break in the row of cubicles so that cows wouldn’t have to walk to either end of the shed to get around to lie on the cubicles.
The Callanans have headlocking barriers on both sides the entire length of the shed.
Kevin and Ciara said this gives more control and allows for carrying out routine jobs, for example clipping tails, vaccinating and scanning.
In total, 60 headlocking barriers are on each side of the shed.
These barriers were sourced from Wilson Agri as were the the water troughs and gates.
At either end of the cubicles are two troughs, one at either end of the shed (four in total).
The pair went with the Aqua drain water trough for ease of cleaning and ensuring cows have access to fresh water at all times.
To empty the trough of water, a lever has to be moved from its locked position and turned to a point where it can be lifted upright in order to release the bung, so that the water can drain away at the bottom of the trough (as seen in the pictures below).
The Callanans went with spaced boarding along one of the shed and at one end of the shed, where its facing north, gates which allow for movement of cows in and out of the shed were sheeted with galvanise.
Although on the day of Agriland’s visit it was a calm, dry day, a biting wind was cutting from a northerly direction and Kevin said without putting up some sort of cover on two sides of the shed, it would leave it very cold for the cows.
On the other side of the shed, no space boarding was erected, nor any galvanise on the gates or a sliding door at the entrance of the feed passageway.
These two sides of the shed are facing into the farmyard where there are other sheds and as a result, there is no risk of substantial amount of rain coming in or a cutting wind like on the other side of the shed.
Increasing slurry storage
The main reason for putting tanks on either side of the cubicles, which equates to the entire floor area of the cubicle, was to increase slurry storage on the farm, which Kevin said was getting tight.
400,000 gallons, 200,000 gallons on either side of the passageway has been built to further increase slurry capacity on the farm.
Kevin said that this mean there is now more than enough slurry storage on the farm.
Heatguard roof sheeting
One element of the building that catches your attention is how bright it is.
This is helped by the fact that the Callanans went with Big 6 Heatguard (HG) 25 roof sheeting supplied by Greenhill Systems.
Kevin and Ciara said they opted for HG25 sheeting as the cows will only be kept in the shed during the winter so heat build will not be so much of an issue.
They said that the HG25 sheeting contains less alloy pigment, which lets more light through for longer during the day and it’s also non-drip, therefore no water gets on the cubicles.
By going with this sheeting, Kevin said it was similar in price compared to going with a traditional tin roof.
Cost
The cost of the shed is standing to the Callanans at roughly €280,000 plus VAT.
The groundworks were carried by Donal Hynes and the concrete work was completed by Packie Rooney; Mike Kelly Engineering stud the shed; Banagher Slats supplied and fitted the slats; Greenhill Systems supplied and roofed the shed; and the electrical work was carried out by Gerry Kelly.
Speaking about going ahead with the shed, the Callanans said: “We are very happy we went ahead with it.
“We are glad now we can put the cows in and make use of it. It gives us great comfort and obviously those extra cubicles we needed.
“Cow comfort is massively important and it’s something we though carefully about when designing and building the shed.
“Also, from our side, in terms of managing and feeding the cows, we learned from mistakes in other sheds, such as having tight passageways where we were restricted that we didn’t want to encounter again,” he added.
“Being an existing dairy farmer, we had built up cashflow over the years to improve the infrastructure on the farm – which was needed as we are at the 200-cow mark now.
“Cow-numbers wise, we are happy where we are and now we want to just build on what we have and continue improving.
“In terms of the time when we built it [last year], we didn’t get badly caught with the rise in price of materials and for what we have and paid for, we are very happy and it just got finished in time [before Christmas].”