Faster Horses

[I Luv Herfrds]

Figured since we got to talking about barns that maybe we had better start our own thread.

here are some pictures of where we plan to put the new calving barn.

Cows at the feed ground

Here is the plan I drew up. Ignore the roof line that is on there. I used my home design program and it makes the roof line as you draw. :roll:

 

[Northern Rancher]

When we visited the Mannville Hutterite Colony they had the best designed calving barn I've seen. It was set up so the gates would swing in and you could use any pen as a maternity pen. They also swung back so you could clean them with a tractor.

 

[Big Muddy rancher]

Do you have a water line at the site?

Why the 2 alley ways? wasted space IMHO.

What do you have for cattle handling facilities out side the barn or do those have to be built new?
Why not incorporate a handling facility inside for all your chute work?

 

[Faster horses]

It looks as if you can get to your new barn without going up a hill.
That's a good thing .Ours you have to go up a hill to get to it, :?

We do similar to what NR said, with our portable panels. We also
have permanent indoor working alley, pen, chute, etc.
Sure makes it nice when the weather is bad.


We have one alley with some wooden pens along the east wall. The
rest are portable and of different sizes with an alley between
the wooden pens and the portable ones. Can get in the alley with
a tractor to clean. The maternity pen is incorporated with
the wooden pens. It's a Moran and it was good insurance when
we bought it as we have hardly had to use it. Which reminds me,
since the cows are sold, the maternity pen it for sale. And it's
a good one.

 

[Northern Rancher]

A big open area barn with portable pens as needed works well. My handling pens are all Morand steel-painstakeingly acquired a few at a time. The only thing that is bad about them is where the panels join-they are curved at the top and if an animal jumps their leg will slide around it and the hoof catches between the panels. Watched a friends stud do it at his place and we had to shoot him. Other than that they are bulletproof-mine have survived broncs, bulls and EXT's. That maternity pen has a pretty good headgate also.

 

[I Luv Herfrds]

Big Muddy to answer your questions, there is a water line about 300 yards to the north.
It may seem wasted, but we had a situation a few years ago that was completely crazy.
There are 5 pens in our present barn with a tack room and a horse area. We had all 5 pens full and had to put the hay in the tack room and a cow in the horse stalls.
It had been 15 below had 4 new calves so the regular pens were full, had brought some cows into the barn to keep it warm and 2 more cows went into labor. We had to keep our one pen that has the headcatch open just in case.
We were moving cows and calves all over the place.
Figured when you have a cow that does not want to go into the pen that extra alley way would work great too.
also be able to bring a calf in without a bunch of cows trying to claim it.

we have a seperate corral just for working our cattle, but we are replacing that a bit at a time.

 

[burnt]

Alleys are not wasted space if they help your handling situation - just expensive space. Sure nice to have the handling options that they give.