Compost bedding pack barns - an investment in cow comfort that pays off

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Less than three per cent of the province's dairy farms use this system. But those who do find it reduces leg injuries, swollen hocks and strawberry footrot in the herd

by MARY BAXTER

Over the past few years, dairy farmers Gert and Peggy Brekveld have been thinking about building a new barn so they can expand their quota and create more room for young stock. The couple currently milk just under 60 cows on their farm near Thunder Bay.

This summer, they took the plunge. When they're done, their new 100-cow barn will be the first compost bedding pack barn in northern Ontario.

Cow comfort is the main goal of the new barn management system, as well as worker comfort. "Every time we made improvements to cow comfort, we saw an increase in milk production per cow or improvements in one form or another," explains Peggy Brekveld. "Cow comfort seems to be the way you make dollars."

"It's an investment that you make once and it pays back every day," adds Gert.

But comfy cows is not the only benefit a compost bedding pack delivers, as farmers elsewhere in the province have discovered. The Wilsons, who farm near Arthur in Wellington North, have operated their compost bedding pack barn for just over a year. In that time, none of the 105 cows that they milk have experienced a leg injury requiring them to be culled. "There's just more square footage of good footing in this barn. They're not always just on cement, they're all on the bedding pack and it's kind of like being in the field," says Kathy Wilson.

Other problems the cows would experience in the family's former tie stall barn, such as swollen hocks or injuries if the animals were having trouble getting up, are now non-existent.

Doug Cranston, who built a compost bedding pack barn on his Ancaster farm in 2006, says he's observed less strawberry footrot in his herd. "We don't even run a foot bath anymore," he says. "If you can keep your composting temperatures up high, you'll kill just about everything – all the bad bacterias."

Less than three per cent of the province's dairy barns use compost bedding packs, says Harold House, the province's dairy and beef housing and equipment specialist. Cranston's operation was the first in the province to adopt the compost bedding pack (he won a provincial award in 2009 for the innovation), but farmers in Minnesota have been using it since the early 2000s. Cranston uses it not only for the 80 to 100 cows he milks, but also for the 120 heifers on the other side of the barn.

The idea behind a compost bedding pack is building up deep bedding – one and a half to two feet deep usually – using materials like sawdust and even recycled drywall. "You can use a lot of different things," says Cranston, who occasionally adds recycled drywall to the powdered plywood shavings he acquires from Home Depot that are too dusty and fine to use in horse barns.

"The combination of the two makes it an economical bedding source," he says, noting the drywall comes out of Toronto and can either be new board with some sort of fault or material recycled from job sites. The Cranstons pay a discounted price for the sawdust; as for the drywall, "we pay for trucking."

Keeping bedding costs down is important because "you will go through a touch more bedding material," Cranston warns.

He's heard of farmers also trying out straw but he is skeptical. "Composting pack will work with a variety of materials. The biggest thing is that the materials have to be fine," he says. Straw would have to be ground into a powder to be successfully used.

Both the Cranstons and the Wilsons till their packs twice a day to bury the cow patties and aid composting. "You have to work it deep. If your pack is two feet deep, you have to work it two feet down," says Cranston. Deep tillage is needed, he explains, to keep the bedding at a certain level of dryness – another component of successful composting. They use a deep, seven-shank, open-tined chisel plow with a quick attach three-point hitch. "It's very easy to put on and off," he says.

Cranston adds bedding loads every two or three weeks; the Wilsons, in contrast, add bedding about once a week. "We decided it's a lot more economical for us to dump a load in and move it around," he explains. "We let the cows do it for us in a sense."

Under this system, bedding is usually cleared about twice a year. The Wilsons leave the bottom foot of the bedding. "It's not wet or anything on the bottom, it's quite surprising," says Kathy.

The Cranstons leave eight feet from the outside wall, which is typically less travelled, says Doug. The bedding is then spread across the rest of the floor to give the new pack the bacteria it needs to quick-start the composting process.

That process can make the bedding warm below the surface – about 57 C to 63 C  at one to one and a half feet, says Cranston. "In wintertime it's beautiful – the cows will actually dig down to lay in it," he says. In summer, they work the pack only an inch or two down in the morning to prevent the release of excess heat and conduct a more intensive tillage at night when it's cooler. Humidity levels help determine how much bedding is used, with the general rule of thumb being that higher humidity means more bedding.

A lot of the composted bedding ends up being applied to fields. The Cranstons also sell 20 to 30 tractor-trailer loads a year.

The pack is employed in a loose housing pen and requires at least 100 square feet of space per cow (the Wilsons use 110 square feet per cow to reduce bedding costs). That means building a larger investment up front for a larger barn. But the process saves on bedding costs, and maintenance is straightforward, say both Wilson and Cranston. Cranston estimates it only takes 10 to 15 minutes to work the pack.

And then there are, of course, the health benefits. Part of the Wilsons' goal, says Kathy, is to increase the number of lactations their animals can go through. They're hoping to make six to seven lactations the standard.

Back in Thunder Bay, one of the biggest challenges the Brekvelds have identified is moisture control, especially in winter. "When we were investigating, we looked at farms in southern Ontario but also in Manitoba," says Peggy. "The packs that seemed to work best were very well ventilated. They had the overhead fans and they had curtain walls. The better the ventilation, the better the system worked."

They have also noticed that some of the barns they've visited have had problems with somatic cell counts. Management of ventilation will be key in addressing that potential challenge, says Gert.

Cranston says that just like any other approach to housing, management is key. "It doesn't matter what you put in, if you don't manage it properly, it won't work." BF