bedded pack management

[TroutRiver]

Anyone here use a bedded pack for winter housing? I manage a small herd of 25 jerseys and we are looking to convert our indoor horseback riding arena into a bedded pack for winter housing. Right now the cows are on the pack at night and on pasture (the little bit that's left) during the day. In another week or so there will be no more grass and they will be inside 24/7. We are trying to find a balance between keeping the cows clean and the bedded pack dry, without using an unreasonable amount of sawdust.

We have no experience with bedded pack management, in the past the cows have stayed in tie stalls through the winter, and they get very dirty (and so do I!). I am hoping to find some tips and tricks to keep them clean and dry this winter.

Thanks!

[spot]

A full grown cow needs about 100 square feet per head for sleeping area and 2 ft of bunks space if feed is kept in front all the time. Where you feed that number of head you will need cement to stop a manure hole from developing . When we use a pack for freshening cows on and this is keeping cows clean we will have the pack hight in then back over 4 feet deep from nov 1 to march .You will need about one small bale of straw per two cows or a big bale of straw for 50 cows . If you have tie stalls and that much bedding I would put in tie stalls and bed good . Do your cows have cow trainer above them so they hit the gutter and not the stall ?

[springvalley]

We manure pack our shed for our cows over the winter, I will not use free stalls again, to much work keeping them clean. And we add bedding as needed in the shed, a couple round bales a week will do most times. And you can use any type bedding, straw, corn stalks, bean stubble, saw dust. I just don`t have a source for saw dust, but it is very good to use, just not as good for the soil in manure form. I have a question, why are the cows not going to have the ability to go out side. My cows have the run of some pasture even in winter, they go for walks most days just to get out for a bit. > Thanks Marc

[mozarkian]

Also curious about why the cows are kept in during winter? Unless it's sub zero, too slick to be safe, etc. my cows usually wander out during the heat of the day for a while. That in itself, helps cut down the daily barn muck out. Course you are way north of me...

[TroutRiver]

It will be sub-zero once the "real" winter hits, and very icy outside. There is no pasture available right outside of the barn, only a driveway on each side, and a small paddock where our draft horses live for the winter (too small for 25 cows and 2 draft horses). The cows would have to walk a little ways to get to pasture, and it's not feasible to have them walking back and forth twice a day to be milked.

We pasture our beef herd in the winter, but with the dairy needing to come to the barn to be milked twice a day, it's just not practical.

[springvalley]

Make sure you have plenty of ventalation for your shed, to much moisture in your shed will cause problems. I have a large door on the south side, and alot of windows on the east side of my shed, cows stay comfey most all the time. > Thanks Marc

[Gopher]

I worked on a dairy the past few years that had their straw bedding pack on the south side of a windbreak. We milked 45 cows. There was no overhead shelter, just the windbreak for the wind. We added a few round straw bales every week. The cows layed on it, and pooped and urinated on it. It never froze in our MN winters. We had to walk the cows about 500 feet to the parlor twice every day for milking. In the spring when the cows went to pasture, we put a hot wire around it and put the sow huts up on the bedding pack for the sows to farrow on. The sows and the piglets stirred through the bedding pack and turned it into a nice compost that we spread on the pasture. Conventional dairy people would come to visit and the could not believe that the cows were not dead. They are a lot heartier than we give them credit for.