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Inspired by dairy setups in Denmark, the design of the nutrition barn at the Centre for Dairy Science Innovation at the University of Nottingham has resulted in a cool, calm environment for 386 cows.

“The herd was suffering some problems with heat stress and udder health in the summer months, and slurry pooling was an issue as there wasn’t enough fall in the floor,” says dairy centre manager Nigel Armstrong.

See also: How a slurry chopper pump is enhancing dairy farm efficiency

The solid-floor, multi-span shed that previously housed the herd was designed with a standard 15deg pitched roof and a lot of skylights.

Cubicles were mattresses bedded with sawdust; ventilation was provided by a series of fans and slurry was moved using hydraulic scrapers.

The most obvious sign of heat stress was cows panting. The temperature in the shed was hotter than outside because of the heat coming off the cows and the heat soak from the skylights.

These conditions reduced yields and feed intakes, and increased cell counts and clinical cases of mastitis.

Performance and cow welfare in the new building are very different. “The peacefulness of the barn is what visitors comment on more than anything,” says Martin Green, vet and professor of cattle health at the university.

The nutrition barn, and a more than doubling of the herd, was part of a funding project that established the unit as the dairy hub for the Centre for Livestock Excellence in Innovation (Ciel).

Mr Armstrong and Prof Green showed Farmers Weekly around.

Milking robots have been used at the university farm for nearly 20 years.

“We wanted to stay with robots, because of the information they provide,” says Mr Armstrong. “We wanted to move away from hydraulic scrapers, because the cows risked damaging their feet on the track and the scrapers, especially when bulling.

“We also wanted to go to sand, ideally with slats around the robots for cleanliness, and natural ventilation that would work.”

Unable to find any units in the UK using sand, robots and slats, they looked to Denmark. Here, a standard setup is a naturally ventilated shed with a 22.5deg roof pitch, a slatted floor with scraper channels pushing muck to one end, and four milking robots.

So, the dairy team took chartered surveyors Haston Reynolds to Denmark to see the system to “get them on board” with the key elements of the design.

They also visited Danish slurry scraper specialist LJM and were the first in the UK to import the company’s underground slurry scraping system. Midlands Slurry, now UK dealer for LJM, helped with the installation.

Minshall Construction of Market Drayton won the contract to put up the nutrition barn, which measures 108x55m.

It is a galvanised-steel construction with a 22.5deg roof pitch and a ventilated light ridge of clear Perspex, designed and manufactured by Minshall, to let light in and heat out.

Side ventilation is controlled by Galebreaker Agri’s side curtain variable ventilation system using data from a weather station on the roof.

Lighting is provided by two rows of LED lights suspended over the cubicle runs. These dim at sunset, light gradually at sunrise and give out a red light at night. Skylights are located only over the handling areas in the middle of the barn.

Total space a cow is 14sq m, and there are 183 IAE sand cubicles, each measuring 2.8×1.26m.

Under the slatted floors are four underground scraper channels that scrape into a slurry auger channel. Underground areas in between the cubicle runs are sloped so slurry slides into the channel.

Above-ground scraping is done by two Lely Discovery robots.

The nutrition barn was part of a £6m expansion of the university’s dairy facilities. The expansion also included a new flexible shed, a youngstock unit and a containment unit.

As a research facility, there were additional constraints, adding to costs. Hard decisions had to be made about what to leave out and keep in.

“It would have been easy to say, let’s make the shed smaller, let’s not make the loafing areas or the areas around the robots as big, but that would have been a disaster,” says Prof Green.

“We’ve learned that the space around the robots, the extra loafing, the non-slatted areas where the cows can bull, are really important.”

“I get a buzz every time I go in there,” says Mr Armstrong. “It’s the environment – even on the hottest day it’s cooler in there, even when there are 190 high-yielding cows radiating heat.

“I’ve worked with cows all my life, and I’ve never seen cows sleep like they do on those sand beds. They are so chilled.”

Lying times have increased, to 12-13 hours a day, adds Prof Green.

“Research we’ve now done shows that aspects of their welfare significantly improve with extra space,” he says.

Lying times also help milk yield: from an average of 31-32 litres a cow a day in the old shed, daily yield for the year-round calving herd is now 38-40 litres, with no nutritional changes.

The Ritchie plastic heated water troughs imported from the US are Mr Armstrong’s best buy.

There is no problem with freezing up, they are easy to clean, and he is certain they will outlast the galvanised tip-out troughs across the rest of the dairy unit.

For Prof Green, the sand cubicles and the space hit the spot. “The extra space cost a lot – but I still think for what it does for the cows, it is worth it.”

The only heat stress seen now is in the handling areas under the skylights, says Mr Armstrong. He would scrap them – and admits they could be covered over now.

Prof Green would consider rubber matting on the slats: “We didn’t talk about them at the time, but we talk about them a lot now, and would consider them in the future.”

The deep sand beds and slatted floor together create a better environment and higher animal welfare, with less drug use and higher milk yields, they say.

“We only have to bed up every couple of weeks with the sand,” says Mr Armstrong.

“It’s so much cleaner and you don’t get the hock sores, the udder issues – animal health is so much better.”

More space around the milking robots has eliminated bullying in this area.

“In the old shed, there were always bully cows blocking the robot off. It’s impossible for them to do that now, so they don’t bother, he says.

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