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Know How / Housing and handling

Advice and information on livestock housing and shed design to ensure your animals’ welfare and productivity. Compare different types of housing and bedding and read case studies on other farmers. Get tips on stock handling equipment, including cattle crushes and races, dairy parlour design and robotic milking.

Case studies

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LIVESTOCK

How a Canadian dairy tackles heat and irrigation limits

Higher summer temperatures and limits on irrigation are prompting John Vanden Dungen and his family to find new ways of making their business more resilient. John farms with wife Tanya…

WHATS IN YOUR LIVESTOCK SHED

WIYLS? New calf-rearing unit eases pressure

Rearing calves has historically been one of the toughest jobs for the Williams family, but a new purpose-designed shed has made the whole process healthier for youngstock and more enjoyable…

LIVESTOCK

Custom-made cattle handling system improves speed and safety

Custom-designed handling facilities enable a dairy-calf-rearing and beef-finishing enterprise to handle up to 100 cattle an hour with just one operator. Aled and Iwan Evans run 640 cattle at different…

DAIRY

Benefits of robotic milking in a pasture-based system

Combining grazing with robotic milking has lifted grass and milk yields at Overton Farm, Somerset, where David Paull and Rosie Sage have three robots to milk their 180-cow organic herd.…

SLURRY AND MANURE MANAGEMENT

How a 540-cow dairy benefited from recycled bedding

A leading dairy herd has been bedded on recycled manure solids since opening its new cubicle house in 2019. The Laird family at Blythbridge Holsteins, West Linton, Peeblesshire, stress that…

OTHER LIVESTOCK

Why deer diversification is a good fit for Welsh hill farm

When the Williams family ventured into venison production, a chief consideration was how it would integrate into their existing beef and sheep enterprises. It meant reducing the sheep flock by…

Practical advice

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HEALTH AND WELFARE

Why pre-housing is the time to ward off pneumonia in calves

With your suckler herd hopefully still out grazing, I’m sure that housing cattle seems a long way off, but it’s time for a bit of planning now, to maximise your…

DAIRY

How to use light exposure to improve milk production

The amount of light a cow is exposed to during a day is called the photoperiod, and it affects some of the hormones the cow produces: melatonin, insulin-like growth factor-1…

BOVINE TB

10 tips for safe cattle handling during TB testing

Cattle are often large, heavy, fast and strong. Combine that mix with TB testing – a situation that may be unfamiliar and stressful for the animal – and it can…

DAIRY

5 ways to fine-tune cubicle housing for udder health

Summer is a good time to review milking cow accommodation. For year-round housed cows, this can be the period of highest environmental infection pressure. For seasonally housed herds, summer is…

DAIRY

Dairy transition management: Why diet is not the only focus

The payback on a successful transition period is “phenomenal” in terms of health, productivity and reproduction, according to Hefin Richards of Rumenation Nutrition Consultancy. But when it is not going…

BROILERS

4-point control plan for managing heat stress in poultry

Climate change is driving increasing weather extremes, which has made heat stress more topical for UK poultry producers. “Last year, some broiler operations lost up to 30% of their flock…

Insights

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POULTRY

8 new products to enhance layer and broiler performance

Margins are under pressure like never before in the poultry sector, which faces high input costs and static prices, and some businesses are operating at a loss. Could it be…

LIVESTOCK

How rising costs threaten future of Icelandic sheep farming

Tough and resilient – the farmers in Iceland are much like the sheep they have bred to cope with the rugged terrain and sub-Arctic winter conditions. But many, like 44-year-old…

POULTRY

The poultry industry's response to total cage ban proposals

A strong industry response to a vocal home-grown animal welfare lobby has already propelled the UK to the forefront of the global move away from cage systems. Despite that, pressure…

POULTRY

Why the industry is fighting Defra's poultry transport plans

Parts of the broiler industry could be severely threatened unless the government adopts a more commonsense approach to Defra’s Improvements to Animal Welfare in Transport consultation, according to the NFU.…

LIVESTOCK

Best dairy bedding for minimising mastitis-causing bacterium

A study carried out at the University of Nottingham has shown sawdust to be the best bedding for minimising the survival of the mastitis-causing pathogen streptococcus uberis (S. uberis.) S.…

POULTRY

A guide to improving poultry shed insulation

Good insulation will keep poultry housing at an even temperature throughout the seasons, reducing heating and ventilation costs. However, older types of insulation may be less efficient due to outdated…

HOUSING AND HANDLING

Video: Inside a state-of-the-art transition cow shed

One USA dairy has converted a shed, originally built for calves, into a state-of-the-art facility for transition cows. The shed at George DeRuyter & Sons dairy in Sunnyside, Washington State,…

LAYERS

A poultrykeeper's guide to ground-source heat pumps

With farm carbon emissions under the spotlight and an increasing emphasis on sustainable agriculture, many producers are moving away from fossil fuels. Ground-source heat pumps offer a good solution for…

HOUSING AND HANDLING

Better way of measuring reveals ideal dairy cow living space

A new on-farm measurement for dairy cow buildings, known as living space, has been developed to provide a better understanding of space allowances for adult dairy cows. Researchers believe living…

HEALTH AND WELFARE

6 things I learned from visiting US 'mega-dairies'

Dairy farming in the US has become synonymous with the words “mega-dairy”. While the scale of US dairy farms bears little resemblance to UK operations, there are some striking similarities…

FEED AND NUTRITION

Research shows benefits of pair housing calves pre-weaning

Pair housing calves before weaning can help them adapt better to different situations as they mature, leading to improved concentrate intakes and higher growth compared with those housed alone. Professor…

POULTRY

Is now the right time to go into poultry farming?

Consumer demand for eggs and poultrymeat have risen steadily over the past 10 years. Buoyant markets have already prompted hundreds of farmers to diversify into broiler and free-range egg production…

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