Agriland recently travelled to view a new-build calf shed on a farm located in Farnadolly, Co. Cavan, between Cavan town and the village of Crossdoney.
The Smith family farm is run by Andrew Smith with the help of his father Philip and his brother Aodhagon, who also works off-farm.
The Smiths recently built an impressive new calf shed on their farm and are also selling milk direct off their farm to the public through their milk barn called ‘Farnadolly Milk Barn’.
Agriland paid a visit to the farm to check out the new calf shed and hear how the family have plans to open the calf shed to visitors in the future.
Andrew explained: “We are milking approximately 200 cows here and, as well as our replacement heifers, we keep approximately 50 of our beef calves on to sell as older cattle. Our cow type is both British Friesian and crossbred, we have a mixed herd.”
He explained how the idea for the new calf shed came about. There was an existing calf shed on the farm, which still remains in use, but like many dairy farms that have expanded cow numbers in recent years, the calf shed was not big enough.
During the peak calving months, the farm was relying on makeshift calving pens and sold off all its earlier-born beef calves, keeping the later-born beef-cross calves to rear on their own farm.
Since the construction of the new shed, there is space to comfortably accommodate 200 calves, with 60 in the old shed and 140 calves in the new shed.
“I didn’t know myself this spring with the new shed. The fresh-born calves went down to the old shed for a week to 10 days and then moved up to new shed onto the automatic feeder. I always had room even if I had a burst of calves,” he said.
The idea for the shed
Andrew told Agriland: “We had thought about building a new calf shed for the past year or two. It was putting a lot of pressure on us in the spring so we said we would take the plunge. We only fully committed to building it in December 2023.
“We got the shed of Teemore Engineering, they had the plan of the shed done out.”
“The shed is approximately 80ft long by 45ft wide with four 20ft wide spans. The shed has three main areas, a dry-bedded layback area to the rear of the pen for calves to lye, a ‘wet area’ or feed area where calves are fed milk, concentrates and water and a feed passage to the front.
There is a concrete drainage channel through the centre of the wet area with a calf slat over the top to allow seepage into a channel. This channel runs the length of the shed and flows into an existing slurry tank.
The floor of the shed is sloped from the rear of the bedded area towards the wet area at the front of each of the pens directing all seepage towards the channel.
The feed passage to the front is approximately 5m wide. The wet area is approximately 3m wide, the bedded area is approximately 6m wide.
Each of the four pens can comfortably accommodate 35 calves and milk feeding in the shed takes place by way of an automatic calf feeder with a feed station in each pen.
Andrew said: “The feeding system is working well so far and thankfully we have had no major issues.”
Calves are fed ration in calf troughs at the front of the shed and get fresh water from drinkers located in the each of the pens. They are fed hay from the passage.
The bedded area of the shed features two layers of bedding. The base is made up of wood chip and the top of the calf bedding is straw. Calves are generally bedded twice a week with fresh straw.
The wood chip at the base improves soakage and helps to keep the calf bed warm and dry.
There is a timber separating the bedded area from the wet area at the front where calves eat and drink and Andrew said that there was a 50ml gap left below this timber board to allow the seepage out through the wood chip and under the board.
Interesting features
As well as the automatic milk feeders, the shed has a range of other interesting features including Heat Guard roof sheeting, Yorkshire boarding on the sides, Galebreaker Roller Screen blinds at the ends of the shed and a temperature-controlled tube ventilation system inside to regulate temperature and remove stale air.
Andrew said the Heat Guard sheeting “makes it a nice bright shed”, while the Galebreaker Roller Screen is on a spring-loaded system (as can be seen in the video), which Andrew says “leaves it fierce handy to get into the shed with the teleporter”.
The tube ventilation system works off a temperature-controlled fan, which Andrew explained “when temperature goes above 14°, the fan comes on and circulates fresh, cool air around the shed”.
The roof of the shed is an a frame with a vent on the top and Yorkshire boarding on the sides.
“With the new shed I’m under far less pressure this spring. I have far better calves this year than I would have any other year. They’re a great even batch of calves and I’m under no pressure to sell them now where I was more so in the past,” Andrew said.
Calf shed cost
Andrew explained that when all is completed and wrapped up, he expects the shed to cost in the region of €70-75,000, plus the VAT.
He said that he opted not to go for the Targeted Agriculture Modernisation Scheme (TAMS) support on the unit.
The shed, gates, Heat Guard roof sheeting, Yorkshire boarding on the sides, Galebreaker Roller Screen blinds at the ends of the shed and a temperature-controlled tube ventilation system were all supplied by Teemore Engineering at a cost of approximately €40,000 plus the VAT.
The concrete was supplied by Plunkett Concrete in Co. Westmeath and cost in the region of €15-16,000 plus VAT. The concrete work was completed by Killian McBride Shuttering and Concrete Work.
Calf shed plans
The new calf shed is located beside the milk barn and Andrew explained that he has plans in the future to open the calf shed “for a few hours at the weekends to the public”.
He says he wants to “open up the farm to let people from non-farming backgrounds see what happens on a working Irish dairy farm”.
“A lot of the people coming to buy milk here are asking us how it comes about and what’s the process involved, so we want to open it up and let people see what we are doing and that we have a good story to tell.”
He said he hopes this will help to “tackle some of the negative press about farming” and hopes it will educate people by showing them how the farm works.
Farnadolly milk barn is open from 8:00a.m to 7:00p.m seven days a week, and customers can get their whole milk through self service.
Commenting on how the milk vending machine venture has been going, Andrew said: “It’s going very well and we are selling 800-1,100L a week.
“We are getting great feedback from our customers on the milk, and we get a great passing trade from customers going out to Killykeen Forest Park. Children seem to love coming out to it as well”.
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