Roundhouse Cattle Building

[Rob R]

We spotted one the other day from afar & invited ourselves for a look at it. The owner was most obliging, despitre not knowing me from Adam, and very enthusiastic about his new building that was so easy to use & much better for the cows. He was Keeping South Devons in it. Does anyone know of others around them or, by any chance, know of a Dexter breeder who has one?

http://www.roundhouseltd.co.uk/

[Steve]

I think there is a guy in Northern Ireland that houses his dexters like this. I believe people attending the AGM last year visited him. I'm sure the Northern Ireland group would be able to supply his name.
Steve

[Broomcroft]

Round might be OK if you have unlimited, cheap land available. But rectangular has to be a million percentage more efficient surely? Maybe that's why 99.9% of buildings are rectangular

[Mark Bowles]

It was Mike Frazer who has a roundhouse in N Ireland, we saw it at the AGM 2011. An extremely efficient way to handle and accomadate cattle all year round, but not for me i am afraid. Traditional buildings and grazing at our farm.

[Rob R]

Round might be OK if you have unlimited, cheap land available. But rectangular has to be a million percentage more efficient surely? Maybe that's why 99.9% of buildings are rectangular

Far superior ventilation though, most cattle buildings encourage pneumonia, this was like they were outside, inside. Excellent feeder space too - it gets over the old problem of needing massive pens to get the feeder frontage. Seeing how easy it was to handle cattle, clean it out & feed/bed up I think it'd soon pay for itself (costs 25% more than a conventional building) that was his main concern - "I just wanted an easier life". But you can store corn in a rectangular building...

Thanks for Mike Frazers name - I might have to look him up if ever I'm out that way.

[Broomcroft]

Can't imagine bedding down on a windy day! You'd have to drive a 100m away and guess where it will land

[Rob R]

My thought on how the design could be improved is a wind turbine stuck on the top of the central post.

We're reerecting a portal frame though, so there's not going to be one here anytime soon but I'm quite jealous of how easy it was for him & how good the cattle looked after a winter in there.

[carole]

its a nice idea but having build our own barns in the traditional way over the last 6 years, the one thing I wished I had done at the very beginning was put in a concrete base. Now all pens have a concrete floor and the difference when you come to clean out the pens is so noticeable, so if you consider a round house, make sure you have a concrete base before you go any further.

The other consideration to make is access to feed barriers and also a gated race, we have spent may an hour moving gates and were not satisfied until we had a permanent race, which is constructed from cattle hurdles, I do see that these folks have that covered, no pun intended.

any way thats my thoughts

carole

[Rob R]

We're laying the concrete slab for our building this week - ten years of managing without one & I'm fed up of picking rocks up out of the fields after the muck spreader...

It's going up adjacent to the existing building with a gap to create a central feed passage, we've always used ring feeders since moving here but having to go into the shed to feed & bed up is too inefficient. I feel your pain with portable gates - having a yard that cattle can't escape from while moving them is going to make things so much easier. The roundhouse just takes it to a whole new level, though, it couldn't be easier for one-man operation. Concreting the rest of the yard is going to take priority over a roundhouse here.

[Rob R]

Round might be OK if you have unlimited, cheap land available. But rectangular has to be a million percentage more efficient surely? Maybe that's why 99.9% of buildings are rectangular

I've just had a look at our yard, which is triangular, and one of the smaller roundhouses would cover our entire cattle buildings, feed passage & handling system, plus where the barn is going to go. Might have to buy nextdoor before I can put one up here, but it's more to do with overall size, than shape.