Ventilating a Calf Shed

funkey_monkey

Moving this year's drop calves into a new shed to isolate them from the sucklers and their calves.

This shed is currently just a small 2 bay round roof machinery shed, but it is fully sheeted on all sides, with another shed butted onto one end and another to one side.

I'm thinking now about how I ventilate it. I've one free gable and the roof. The free side has the door on it so it's rather leave that side alone.

It is located in a very windy area, so I'd have concerns about how I open the roof incase it causes issues in a storm.

Any suggestions about how I ventilate it or how I can get info on ventilation?

minerleague

Some people remove a few of the top sheets on the round shed and replace with longer ones that are more rounded in profile so they stick up a bit in the middle. Can you cut a few holes in side sheeting just above calf height to let air in? Body heat should warm that air and rise to roof then ( in theory anyway)

ABitofsense

Ive done the Yorkshire boarding on 2 sides of a creep area i build on to my slatted shed with one of the sides into the prevailing wind from the west and other side to the east. I have blocks to ~7ft and then boarding done to the roof then. Its a great job and surprised me how good it was. No health issues at all with the calves in it

V6400

If you cut a U shape rather than a hole in the side sheeting and fold out the tin maybe 4-6 inches it helps stop rain coming in but still lets air circulate.

funkey_monkey

I can either remove some side sheets and replace with cladding or else kick the side sheets out at the bottom to allow air in.

With the cladding I think it would be best to go for Yorkshire cladding style rather than space cladding.

Could also kick out the side sheets like this:

One of those will resolve the air inlet. Would I need to do anything for air outlet?

funkey_monkey

The pens will be 15'x15'. What ratio should be the split between bedded area and the concrete feeding area? Would it need to be a 50:50 split? I've assumed that calculating stocking density based on the bedded area - not overall pen size.

15'x7.5' gives a bedded area of 10.5m2. That would allow 5 calves per pen (2.1m2 per calf), but I think 6 (1.75m2) should be fine given that the feeding area is separate.

Back to the ventilation - If I was to put in Yorkshire boarding on the gable starting at a height of approx 6' up to the curved roof, I'd probably need another area of ventilation to act as an exit point for the air, correct?

Might need to get some smoke bombs from Amazon to see what is actually happening.