Pengwern Farm, Denbigshire

Description

Building new cow housing was essential to enable dairy farmer, Huw Jones, to rear all his youngstock at home and indoors.Pengwern Farm, in Denbighshire, North Wales, run by Huw in partnership with his mother, has 400 milking cows and 200 followers, on 500 acres. High yielders are housed all year round and the whole herd is calved between July and January.Traditionally, Huw outwintered some of the herd’s heifers on his own land and sent some away to be reared on a nearby farm. However, last year the decision was made to rear all youngstock indoors and on the home farm. In order to carry out this plan, more cow housing was required at Pengwern.Huw entered a planning application for a new cowshed. Once permission had been granted, building started and the shed was completed. Huw visited other farms to assess different housing designs and construction methods, but decided to replicate another shed that had been built at Pengwern two years ago. The new shed is 60 ft x 180 ft in size, with one open side and is currently loose housing. The plan is to install 150 cubicles in the near future, with a loafing area at each end of the building.In order to help maintain good growth rates and health amongst housed young stock, Huw wanted to maximise levels of ventilation. The new shed was therefore installed with an open ridge to help improve airflow through the building. A smoke pellet test was carried out in the housing and Huw was impressed with how quickly stale air was pushed up and out of the ridge.Huw hopes that improving natural ventilation in the new youngstock housing will help save money in the long term. Two of the farm’s older cow sheds have to rely on fans to help keep cows cool and they have proven noisy and expensive to run. The farm has had cow housing clad with steel roofing sheets in the past and there were a lot of problems with condensation. Huw decided to use Profile 6 Fibre Cement sheets on the new shed to help keep moisture levels to a minimum and ensure a good, dry atmosphere.