OWP on concrete yard base

morning delight

Folks

I'm considering converting a concrete yard beside a slatted shed into an outdoor wintering pad. The cows will feed on the slats as normal but have the pad for the rest of the time. The concrete yard is set up to drain into the slatted tank.

My question is - what should I use on the concrete, and how much of it?

annubis

will your tanks not just be filling with rainwater runoff from the yard if its not roofed?

fastrac

Slatted tank will fill up Qiuck

locky76

fastrac wrote: »

Slatted tank will fill up Qiuck

not necessarily, i've to draw in water to my slatted tank to fill it before i agitate it every year.
it never dawned on me to put an outwintering pad on an old silage pit.
seems like a good idea.

morning delight

I've heard that there isn't much run off, the bedding soaks and retains alot of the water.

But what is the best bedding to use?

hammer73

with my work ive seen alot of people trying to make an out wintering pad from an old concrete yard or covered silage pit by filling it with wood chip.

The key to a sucessfull out wintering pad is for the liquid to get away and that is not easy on a concrete base, even if there is a slope on it. Ive seen covered silage pits filled with wood chip turn to slop very quickly for this reason so if you have an uncovered yard then dont expect wood chip to last long before it needs replacing.

leg wax

put slats up on blocks and put a scraper under the slats to push the slurry to your tank,its in the farmers journal this week a guy in scotland doing it,had same idea for inside a shed as i already have a scraper .

Sam Kade

I agree with hammer. Woodchip needs very good drainage for it to work and stock also need to be taken off the pad for a few hours during the day to allow it to dry out. I have used woodchip in a covered silo and it was a total disaster as it couldn't dry out.

Sam Kade

leg wax wrote: »

put slats up on blocks and put a scraper under the slats to push the slurry to your tank,its in the farmers journal this week a guy in scotland doing it,had same idea for inside a shed as i already have a scraper .

But what happens when the scraper stops or gets stuck under the slats as they do? You would have to remove the stock and start lifting slats to get it moving again.

leg wax

Sam Kade wrote: »

But what happens when the scraper stops or gets stuck under the slats as they do? You would have to remove the stock and start lifting slats to get it moving again.

my 3rd winter with scraper no trouble yet, and if it did break down put stok on feed passage lift slat and fix no science or big job,you could also leave the ram and scraper blade start its run from outside and not under the slats.:cool:

Sam Kade

leg wax wrote: »

my 3rd winter with scraper no trouble yet, and if it did break down put stok on feed passage lift slat and fix no science or big job,you could also leave the ram and scraper blade start its run from outside and not under the slats.:cool:

I have automatic scrapers since 1998, when they stop moving or get stuck it takes the length of the shed to get them moving properly again. So if that happened with scrapers under slats you would have to remove more than one slat to solve the problem also if they stopped during the night and there was a big build up of slurry in front of them again you would have to lift a lot of slats to clear the passage and get them moving again.

Rujib1

Do you ever read the weekly diary in the Tuesday Farming Independent? He said in this weeks edition that they are putting their pads out of comission this winter, because they take a lot of work to keep them effective and are costly in terms of renewing the wood chips and labor.

R

mossfort

probaly better to spend your money on some slat mats.

morning delight

mossfort wrote: »

probaly better to spend your money on some slat mats.

Thanks for all the replies. In the end i've gone for mats on the slats. Cows only in days and already some of them are getting tender on the legs!

hammer73

have you done a deal yet on slat mats? pm me with your details and ill do you a deal on some slat mats.