Video: Lancashire farmer designs flexible shed for quiet cattle
A suckler herd is benefitting from a bespoke shed offering two important low-stress features.
Self-locking feed panels and a viewing gantry were incorporated into the new shed at Landgate Farm, Bryn, Wigan, where the Baldwin family produces Limousin-cross British blue store cattle.
With stores sold through Skipton and Newark livestock auctions at around 10 months of age, quiet cattle are very important to the Baldwins.
See also: ‘Belt and braces’ strategy to pneumonia aids herd expansion
Read about the key features and watch the video below of Mr Baldwin showing us around the shed.
Shed features
Viewing gantry
- Allows large numbers of cattle to be viewed quickly and quietly. This helps staff make time for more visits and gets cattle familiar with people being in the shed. Time spent with cattle has changed during the herd’s expansion.Â
Feed panels
- Jourdain feed panels were expensive but a worthwhile investment for the Baldwins who use the interlocking feature to help veterinary inspections and with pregnancy diagnosis and artificial insemination.
The mixed farm also grows wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape but Stuart Baldwin is certain that the suckler man will always be wanted and has recently trebled his herd to 250 head.
The shed is multi-purpose, he stresses, and is used for storing cereal during harvest, meaning it could be reconfigured in the future.Â