Feeding Out in a Redpath Dairyshelter

A Redpath Dairyshelter provides the farmer with a flexible feedout solution for their business. Feed can be placed at a time that suits the farmer and cows can be bought into the shelter before or after milking and the feed is already in place to eat.

Feed can be pre-prepared and mixed with supplements and then placed onto a feedpath along the sidewalls of the Dairyshelter or into feedbins.

Some Redpath Dairyshelters are now being built with a central ‘service lane’ (see picture above). The center service lane option provides the owner with a completely covered feedout option and a dry place to keep equipment/machinery that works in and around the shelter.

Water troughs will usually be placed in the four corners or at the endwalls of the dairyshelter – as this assists with keeping water from being dragged into the soft floor litter system. (Its best to keep the flooring as dry as possible).

Farmers who own Redpath Dairyshelters say that feeding out in them or around them is a efficient and speedy affair. Usually a side throw feedwagon is utlised however some farms still operate bale feeders or run a ‘self feed” system along the buildings end walls or sidewalls where the cows simply walk out onto a concrete pad area and eat the feed at their leisure from a bulk bin or silage stack placed their. They then return to the shelter to loaf / rest.

Savings in feed costs when feeding in a controlled sheltered environment is as much as 40% some farmers say and this in main is from achieving a virtual 100% uptake of feed (nil wastage) + the cows when sheltered tend to eat or require less feed compared to when they are out in the field and exposed to the elements.

Cows also maintain or gain condition much easier and for less cost when inside a Redpath clear-roofed dairyshelter.

Evidence for protecting pastures with on-off grazing during winter.

Research in Taranaki compared winter grazing systems, illustrating the advantage of on-off grazing compared to 24 hour grazing and strip grazing with no back fencing.
Thomson N A, Judd T G, Johnson R J. 1993. Winter grazing – Is There a Better Way? Dairy Farming Annual 45:78-82.
Location: Taranaki Agricultural research Station, Normanby.
Measured over two winters: 1982 & 1983. Soil type: Stratford fine sandy loam.

Block grazing reduced pasture production by 15% over the next two grazings compared with on-off grazing. This is 305 kg DM/ha. This has feed has a value of $91 if it has to be replaced at $0.30/kgDM.