Feeding the cow

The first thing that you no doubt notice is that the feed passage at the front is only 8 feet wide. No getting a complete diet feeder up there! Those of you who have read the rest of this web site will know that we are not exactly the kind of farmer who likes to feed massive amount of bought in feed to our cows. The cows when housed just get fed grass silage together with a few kg of meal fed using out of parlour feeders.

We find 8 feet to be an ideal width for our feed passage. This is just a nice width for operating with out Matro TR

200 which we use with a 6' shear grab attachment to feed the silage (Not attached in this picture). The barriers fold inwards so as to allow the cows to reach to the very centre of the passage. This means that no graping needs to be done and the whole thing is licked clean. The barriers then tilt out the way where they can locked in position to keep the cows head out of the way while feeding is going on. Since the silage is served up in big airtight blocks this means that it is slow to degrade and the cattle need fed only three times a week. The feeding passage is slightly higher than the floor of the shed were the cows are standing to make feeding easier.

Scrapers

The passages are scraped my means of a hydraulic scrapers which operates every three hours. Their are holes at the end of the house covered by flaps (made from quarry belting). The scrapers scrape the much out onto a platform outside were the slurry falls through and the scrapers sit until the next scraping. The scrapers both have a wing on one side which is longer than usual to scrape the wider passage at the feeding barrier.