cows and calves on slats

vanderbadger

folks just wondering if anyone has acreep area for calves on slats and if so does it work well, my own are in a creep area off the slats on straw, just wondered how the stronger calves would get on if their creep area wasnt straw bedded but say on slat mats, i think they would be ok so long as they had a place the cows couldnt access, anyone have this type of setup, say a pen on slats that only the calves can access

1chippy

Was thinking of this myself, but not sure. the main reason being that a crowded pen will stay clean whereas with a creep area i doubt the calves will keep it clean. Might get away with scraping it down each day but unless you left the other pens without mats it might be hard to give the calves incentive to go into that area.

Figerty

I had calves on rubber mats rather than straw last year. Not a bother on them, though they prefer straw, they prefer rubber to concrete! It does get Dirty and needs to be scrapped off now and again. However I put a good slope on the creep area and it's almost self cleaning with calves.

A friend of mine bought 'calf slats' and put them up on 6 x 2's in the creep area. He gives them a scrape out underneath with steel rake once a week and a bucket of water. He swears by it. I think he puts a small shake of straw on top for warmth for young calves.

I haven't seen this setup, just heard about it.

Milton09

Yes, 2 years ago I did this, the slats had comfort slat mat rubber fitted, worked very well. Calves put on slats after about 7 days old.

Last winter I had them on a straw/hay/silage bed, very hard to keep dry, this year hope to creep on the slats again.

vanderbadger

interesting, thanks for replies. just trying to figure out ways to maximise space a bit better. was talking to comfort slat mat rep recently and he told me they have a special slat mat in mind for calves, they see alot of potential in it apparently. straw is nice but nice bit of work in it trying to keep them dry

just do it

Some pictures from the comfort slat mat website. I looked at this last year and thought they looked good but I never got around to doing any more research into them.

Van - did you get prices for them?


































One or two of the below in the creep area could do nicely. It looks like the timber frame is homemade and if high enough shouldn't need to be lifted for cleaning out too often

vanderbadger

I didnt price them no, he just mentioned them in passing, I suppose if you had them on a timber frame you could lift and give a sweep out every so often, i was thinking more of having them on the standard mat like the first pic

just do it wrote: »

Some pictures from the comfort slat mat website. I looked at this last year and thought they looked good but I never got around to doing any more research into them.

Van - did you get prices for them?


































One or two of the below in the creep area could do nicely. It looks like the timber frame is homemade and if high enough shouldn't need to be lifted for cleaning out too often