Moving Cattle into Brand New Barn

you ladies ready to move hey everyone so today is an extremely exciting day we are going to start moving cattle into our new barn so we're going to start with the youngest animals fill this end of the building and the other end is going to be coming from the neighboring farm then so i probably won't be doing that today so i want to do a complete walk through this barn at some point go over all the details but i decided i'm going to wait till after the calves are all in it i figure you might as well get a good look at it though before we get everything dirty we have eight pens so the back of the building is a bed pack area we're gonna put a bunch of bedding in there now and then the front's just a scrape valley it's a slide of floor so it's really going to be nice it's going to stay dry clean up in the front and in the back we'll just have bedding every week we've made this little concrete ramp right out from the barn goes into this old warehouse we're going to keep our bedding in here i'm gonna go through and open up all these gates so the back there's a gate that hangs from the back wall one from the front and they lock together with these pretty nifty latches you need two hands to open it and you can separate the gates and this is set up just to swing in and latch right there so when there's calves in here we'll just be able to pin them in the front while we bed up some of these gates were made to telescope they don't all telescope but these thinner pens at this end they had to make them that way or else they would run into the next gate as you'd fold them over i'm gonna go open the rest of these up so i'll just start rolling bells out [Music] you need to get some chains on some of these gates i guess to hold them against the wall they just swing open so we'll put a number of bells in maybe four or something to get started we got two bells in i had to get myself a mask a little dusty [Music] i think our ramps working out pretty good first time i tried it i went up forwards with no load on the skid loader and just about tipped back i didn't like that but you gotta go up backwards now the heifers will spread this around a good bit but i like to break up some of the piles [Music] it's funny it feels kind of weird to be moving calves in here it's the whole point of why we built it but we got four bales in we just have no idea what to expect as far as how quick these pens will get dirty how often we have to bed them up we're gonna have to get another easier way to bed this part up at some point there's uh i've seen guys that use their manure spreaders put bedding in it and then just drive down through and spread it out we might have to try that next what do you think of those latches yeah that's handy they seem pretty sturdy yes i don't know what they do if they're how quick they've been that they'd slam into them right but that quick so the first group is going to be kev straight out of the calf barn we'll get them first and then we'll start working through the heifer barn so everything in that building is getting moved into this one that barnes is getting torn down so they should fill this thing up to about two-thirds or something up through this pen and then we'll have those last two pens about 30 head can fit in there and that's from the farm we read down the road we got the breeding age heifers so we're going to start with the animals at home just because then we'll be feeding them the same that'll be a pretty easy transition we're going to use the truck and cattle trailer to haul them over this will just back in this area unload them right here so we've kind of been putting this job off a little bit because we knew we were gonna be moving in especially these three these three are massive they're more like four months we usually move them around three months old all right see if i can fit through this scrape alley oh you got it it's a tight fit but we got it this entire area will be changing eventually there's going to be plenty of space just brought this old mat along to cushion the step a little bit this is exciting this this is not a very inviting environment to move into just got to get to know it a little bit i hardly get them to move [Music] there it is what do you think got all kinds of space to run around oh yeah they're liking it now we're gonna start getting heifers out of this barn i figure we'll start at the youngest end and just fill up pens as we go we'll back the trailer in right to this corner and uh dad's just gonna dump some shavings in this area so that it's drier a little bit easier for them to stub up on there so i'm gonna go through and open all these gates up and then we can get the youngest calves and bring them this way uh [Music] [Applause] um yeah i like that that seems like a good it's a nice funnel yeah so we were thinking maybe we'd get two pens worth of calves on that first load but that was asking for a bit too much we got 11 on there so so i was thinking it might be nice to unload him onto the bedpack in the back rather than on the concrete in the front but it's kind of a big ledge on the concrete back there so still up here um all right all right okay so we got 29 head moved in so far it's going pretty good [Music] can be a little bit of work getting them loaded on the trailer but getting it done we have 32 more head in that barn so if we put four in there eating there that gives us another 20. we ordered a load of stone to spread around the building here a little bit we don't want to go too crazy because there's more excavating work to do but we need to keep it from being muddy for the mixer [Music] we'll just put some in this area where we got to drive through the tractor and mixer got the trailer back again we're down to the last four pens each one has eight calves in it okay okay this board is set up that 81 animals can eat at one time and i counted up all the heifers we have to move in right now and it's 85 so we're really close to that number my goal is to not over stock it at all i like to keep plenty of space that way the bedding won't get dirty as quick calves will have a good clean environment and they'll be able to eat anytime they want yeah right off the bat here we'll have to have a couple extra it's not a big deal put some stone right here to make a nice ramp make this a little bit easier come on come on come on girls you seem to walk good on the slats oh look at that this pen holds 12. alright last group let's get these last ones in [Music] okay giddy up first time ever walking on slats go ahead so we got them all moved in this pen has 17 in it we got to get four of them out of there it's the last thing we have to do and then we're set so we got room for about 25. yeah we're gonna haul from the other farm we're still waiting on a couple latches that they ran out of we're going to put a rope on here hopefully i don't chew it slats are working already making a mess it's just a completely different environment in this barn versus the old one it's a good air moving through here shaded still very bright so that was a fun job and also kind of a uh patience testing job it was gonna be a little bit like that with heifers it can just be a little frustrating sometimes very happy to have him in a much cleaner and better environment this great belly's going to just stay clean we've got the slighted floor big bed pack area in the back plenty of space to run still got some more videos to come on the new barn we got some more animals to move in and then some i want to do a tour of it and everything go over it in detail so okay guys we'll see

Channel: 10th Generation Dairyman

Views: 646,777

Rating: 4.8835521 out of 5

Keywords: farming

Id: cnuXFvz1tOE

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 19 2021