For this week’s Buildings Focus, Agriland made the trip to Co. Sligo to speak to Andrew Boyers about his new beef finishing unit.
The Sligo native runs a 35-cows suckler herd which sees all progeny, bar replacement heifers, brought to beef.
Winter housing had been tight, with finishing (steers and heifers) stock having to be housed with weanlings, which was part of the decision to look at building a standalone finishing shed.
Speaking to Agriland outside the new shed, Andrew said: “Winter accommodation was tight on the farm and as well as increasing housing space, I wanted to make life easier for myself too.
“I work off-farm, so I wanted to streamline the farm and have it in a way that I could do the jobs morning and evening in stress-free and timely fashion.”
Layout
From the outset, Andrew wanted a simple, well laid-out shed that gave him options and more importantly, allowed him to feed his cattle efficiently and at ease.
DR Designs Architectural Technology and Construction Management designed and carried out the planning process, before handing it over to Carroll Consultancy Agricultural & Busineess Consultants which completed the grant and claim process for him.
The shed is a four-bay slat, with a lieback/feeding passageway at the back of the slatted pens.
It measures 19.15m long and 9.66m wide. It stands near 6.5m to the apex and 4.7m to the eaves.
The slatted tank, which spans across the four bays, is 23.2m long, 4.1mm wide and 2.4m deep. Three of the four bays measure 4.8m wide, with the other bay measuring 4.75m wide. Each of the four bays measure over 4.6m long.
The feeding passageway at the front of the shed measures over 19m long and extends out over 4m, with part of this covered over with a roof overhang.
The inner feeding passageway/lieback area with the crush, measures 19.15m long and 5m wide.
Features of the finishing shed
With the intention of using the shed solely for finishing cattle, Andrew wanted the shed laid out in a way that he could feed cattle from both sides of the slatted pens.
So he went with diagonal feed barriers on either side of the pens to allow him to do just that.
All of the gates, feed barriers, water troughs and crush were sourced from Teemore Engineering.
Andrew said that the plan is to feed silage out at the front feed face and then have feeding troughs set up in the inner passageway to feed meal to the cattle.
With sliding doors at either end of this inner feeding-passageway, it should allow for efficient feeding of cattle for Andrew.
By having the passageway wide enough, even with the crush in it, it gives the Sligo native the option of swinging in a tractor a diet feeder to feed finishing stock also if he so wishes into the future.
Andrew went with 14ft, 6in slats, with a solid concrete lip at either end of the slats before where it meets the feed barriers.
Three stainless steel water troughs were fitted to serve the four pens of the shed.
Gates separating each of the pens can be swung open if there is a need to move cattle from one pen to another, orto funnel cattle through one end of the shed to the other when using the crush which is located in the inside the shed against the back wall.
Being able to move cattle between pens means Andrew can move cattle pen-by-pen, up through the shed to the back of the crush and back around into the pens again.
To prevent cattle from having access to the entire inner feed passageway/lieback area, a gate was hung onto the last bay of the shed where the rear of the crush is.
This gate basically creates a holding pen (see below) that will help Andrew funnel cattle up the crush at ease and allow for a safe and clear area for him and anyone else handling cattle along the crush, as any cattle that can’t fit into the crush can be held.
Although not fit for this purpose yet, the gate creates a holding pen that can swing back and align with the rest of the crush and in time, Andrew plans to have it that the gate can lock into the girder in order to end up with an extended crush.
The crush itself is compartmentalised, meaning that each section can be opened up in case an animal went down in the crush.
There is a power socket at the head and rear of the crush for Andrew to use too.
By having the sliding door, Andrew will be able to load cattle from the crush at ease and safely, most importantly.
This inner feeding passageway/lieback area can be used for much more than what Andrew intends to initially use it for.
It can be set up in way that you could have three dry bedded pens. All that is needed is another gate which would hang from the front post of the crush which it is set up to take.
Other than that, it’s finished to grant-spec.
Two water taps were fitted outside, at either end of the shed. Beside the manhole cover for the slatted tank is another stainless steel cover where runoff from the nearby silage pit runs from into the slatted tank.
Cost
The overall cost of the shed stood to Andrew at €77,000 plus VAT.
However, as he was eligible for a grant (60%) under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS II) and by reclaiming the VAT, it left the shed at a reasonable price – especially considering the cost of building now.
Therefore, taking into account the value of the grant and the VAT reclaimed, the new shed is standing to Andrew, out of his own pocket, at €33,000.
Andrew was able to source a digger from Arken Construction to carry out what work he could do himself and he also fitted all the gates and barriers in the shed himself.
Norris Plant Hire carried out the excavation work on the site, along with putting in the tank and associated concrete both within and outside for the shed.
North West Structural Steel erected the shed. The slats were sourced from Harrington Concrete and Paul Moran completed the electrical work, fitting two rows of lights inside at the front and back of the shed.
Speaking about going ahead and building the shed, Andrew said: “Look, I’m very happy with it.
“Keeping it simple and being able to do some of the work myself went a long way in keeping the costs down.
“If I hadn’t, I could have been looking at spending €110,000-120,000 in total. I wanted the shed laid out that I could, morning and evening, in between the off-farm job, feed my cattle at ease and in a timely fashion, without being stuck out in the yard for hours.
“And with the way the shed is set up I can safely move and handle cattle within it – which is most important.
“Also, I now have a shed for all the different cattle now on the farm [cows and replacement heifers, weanlings and finishing stock],” he added.
“It gives the farm more structure and the new shed can be flipped in many ways to accommodate more than just finishing cattle, which is a bonus.”
