This week’s Buildings Focus saw Agriland make the trip to Co. Offaly to check out a new 5-bay slatted unit with a loose area on the farm of Jamie Carroll.
Jamie, in partnership with his mother Breda, operates a calf-to-beef system, with predominately Hereford and Angus-cross calves bought-in and eventually brought to slaughter.
Jamie bought the farm, which the new shed is built on back in 2020. This came about after he took the decision to sell a smaller holding that had a dry bedded shed to fund a move to the new farm which was just a few miles down the road.
The Offaly native said they had been in a position where there was no suitable rearing or housing accommodation for cattle either on their old farm or new farm.
This meant that a new shed was always going to be needed.
Speaking to Agriland outside his new shed, Jamie, who is a mechanic by trade, said: “We had always struggled for winter accommodation and when we moved to this farm after purchasing it in 2020 one of the first tasks was to look at building winter housing.
“In 2020 I outwintered the cattle and last winter [2021] I actually built a multi-purpose shed first. It’s a 4-bay single that I housed the cattle and it has become the machinery shed.
“Just last week, after a lot of work and time, I housed cattle in the new 5-bay shed we have built.”
320 hours to build new shed
But it was not all smooth going for the mother and son team initially when it came to their plans for the new shed.
Back in 2020 and 2021 there was a lot of disruption to building projects because of the impact of the pandemic and at the time building contractors were also inundated with contracts for sheds.
Because of possible delays to the new 5-bay shed and a few snags that they ran into Jamie ended up taking on the job of building the majority of the shed himself.
He said: “When we bought the land it was during Covid-19 and just the way it fell, a contractor I had lined up to do the shed in the end didn’t have the time to get to me.
“And with building materials on the rise, I took on the job of building the shed myself so that another year didn’t slip by without having it up.
“Excluding the digging out and standing of the tanks, walls and floor of the shed, although I was there to give a hand for all of that, I did the rest of the shed myself with a few friends giving me a dig out when I needed it.
“I stood the girders, sheeted the entire shed and hung all gates, feed barriers and doors, except for the roller doors which the company I bought them from fitted them.
“I calculated roughly that I put 320 hours into getting shed to the finish it is today, with just a few small bits here and there to tidy up.
“Looking back on it, I’m happy I did the work I did myself, as not only is it a nice achievement, but I worked out I saved myself €20,000 by doing the job myself.”
Design
Jamie had a good idea of what layout of a shed he wanted because he had spent a lot of time researching and visiting farms over the last few years to gauge what would work for him.
He enlisted MP Engineering to help him get is ideas down on paper and take the lead on the planning process for the new build.
The new shed was built on a greenfield site in the corner of the front field of the new farm.
The design includes a five-bay slatted unit with five loose pens at the back and a feed face at the front.
The building is 24m long and 18.1m wide. The unit stands 7.24m high to the apex and 4.1m to the eave gutters.
The concrete walls of the shed stand 2.0-2.3m high, with a fall incorporated from the back to wall to the slated tank meaning a height difference in the side and back walls.
The slatted tank is 26.5m long, 4.7m wide and 2.4m deep. Agitation points are located at either end of the tank.
The five slatted pens are 4.8m wide and over 6.1m deep, with 16ft 6 slats installed. The five loose pens directly behind the slatted pens are 4.8m wide and 9.1m deep.
There are two roller doors in the shed. One on either side of the shed, which gives access into the loose pens. One which gives access to the middle section of the loose area and another one that gives access to the back section of the loose area.
Shed features
One key aspect that Jamie specified for the new shed was a concrete surface which joins up with the other shed facing it on the other side of the yard – he said this was important to keep the area clean and tidy.
At the front feed face, Jamie opted for standard diagonal feed barriers.
Because the plan for the future is to install a crush at the back of the shed Jamie said he was not tempted to also put in headlocking barriers. He felt he would loose one or two feed spaces per pen if he opted for headlocking barriers over diagonal ones.
Just inside the feed barriers in the pens are four galvanised water troughs which serve the five pens.
The five pens are separated by heavy duty 4-bar gates which stretch the length of the pen.
A big element of the design of this shed is the depth of it – both the slatted pens and loose pens. This will in turn support the Carrolls’ move to organic farming with a larger lying area needed for farms who want to qualify for organic status.
Jamie chose to install 16ft 6 slats with the option if he wishes in the future, to install mats as he has left a lip in the slats in order for the mats to slip into.
Currently there are two-year-old bullocks and heifers in the shed, with eight cattle comfortably residing in each pen.
At the back of the slatted pens, rather than fitting a gate at the back of the pens to divide the slatted pens from the loose pens, Jamie installed another set of diagonal feed barriers. There is a small gate in each pen which doubles up as a feed space but also as a gate for cattle to move from the slats to the loose area.
At the back of the shed there are loose pens and this area can be adjusted and set up to suit a number of different systems.
As the move to organics a key goal for the Carrolls their plan is to feed the cattle at the front feed face as they are doing now and then let them access the loose area which will be bedded with straw.
In order to control the area of the loose area cattle can access, this area can be split in two.
Jamie left sleeves in the middle of this area with heavy duty 4-bar gates locking into it from both sides to accommodate this.
By doing this cattle can access one pen while the other pen could potentially be used as storage for example.
In terms of suiting different systems the shed could be turned around to house sucklers with the loose area acting as a creep for calves. Or the inner feeding barriers could be used to feed meal to finishing stock with silage continuing to be fed at the outer feed face.
In order to keep this loose area dry when bedded with straw, a one in four fall was incorporated for any moisture or runoff from the bedding to seep off into the slatted tank at the front of the shed.
Because the posts in this area are in sleeves, it will make cleaning out the sheds easy and efficient as the poles and gates can lifted out for a tractor and loader to come in and clean it out.
This loose bedded area can be accessed from either side of the shed through two roller doors. Jamie opted for roller doors because he felt they would be more secure than sliding doors.
Furthermore, because the two roller doors are staggered it means the posts and gates don’t even have to be taken out when cleaning out the shed either.
If cattle are given access to the area where the roller doors are hung, gates have also been fitted to swing across the doors to protect them from the cattle damaging them.
At the back wall of the shed, there are three small doors, which Jamie made himself.
His plan in the future is to have a crush at the back of the shed. The plan is to make a pen just outside where the back roller door is.
This is where cattle will run into from the shed and funnel into the crush before entering the shed again through the small door at the back wall of the shed (furthest right in the picture below) which was made wider than the other two doors to give cattle that bit more space to turn back into the shed.
The shed is set up to ensure cattle could be moved around the shed from pen to pen when a crush is installed allowing one person to handle and move cattle safely.
As with any grant specified shed, vented sheeting was installed at the back of the shed from the top of the wall to the eaves.
Two sets of LED lights were fitted in each bay of the shed, with lights also installed at the sides of the shed.
There is also plenty of translucent sheeting fitted onto the roof to bring natural daylight into the shed.
Cost of the build
The Offaly natives were eligible for a grant under the Targeted Agricultural Modernisation Scheme (TAMS II).
The total cost of the build stands at €148,000 including VAT.
Taking into account the value of the grant and VAT reclaimed, the shed is standing to the Carrolls at €55,000.
ELM Plant Hire carried out the excavation work on the site. The tanks and walls of the shed were stood by Buckley Sand and Gravel. The slats were sourced from Longford Precast. The shed was supplied by Midland Cladding and erected by Jamie.
The entire inside of the shed, including gates, feed barriers and troughs were purchased from Coyle Agri.
Speaking about the decision to go ahead and build the shed, Jamie said: “We needed to build the shed and I’d hoped to have it up sooner than I did.
“But in saying that looking back on it I’m glad I was able to do as much of the work I did on it with the help of friends and neighbours as well. It was a lot of work but it’s something I look back on with pride.
“I’m really happy with how it turned out and now the next thing to do is fill it with cattle. It will, hopefully, take a lot of hardship out of winter feeding.
“It gives us great flexibility in terms of what we can do with it. It could be switched around to suit a number of different systems but for now the plan is to make the move to organics so we will see how that goes.”
