IN this instance time should play the biggest role , because if you are controlling the job yourself then you probably aren ’ t paying yourself anyway . So if you spend extra time getting it right it probably doesn ’ t cost you anything . Yet the benefits can be far reaching .

Simple mistakes are made , especially late in the year :

“ We are desperate to get some cows undercover ”.

“ I need the cheapest option to get some cattle off the land ”.

“ We have a gap here close to the house , it ’ s wasted space , we might as well use it for now , and we ’ ll use it as a garage / workshop later ”. Yet mostly once cattle go into a building it is very difficult to turn the building back to anything other than cattle housing .

Did you stop and think is it in the right place to get rid of all the muck ?

Does the ground slope away from or to the house ?

Water runs downhill naturally , so does dirty water and muck .

With this adage in mind and a bit of thought , a simple well-designed farmyard will help to wash itself with every bit of rain . To put it simply if you can keep the farmhouse and yard at the top end and direct all the muck to the low end , cleaning will be a lot simpler and life a lot more pleasant with a lot less earache from the housekeeper .

£ 2,000.00 goes nowhere with vets bills , antibiotics and loss of growth rate or even lost / dead animals , all too often these factors are just put down to a fact of life , especially on a farm , just by buying / using the cheapest options at the beginning .

Very few open sided buildings work well for animal housing as far

as ventilation and air exchange work , people say to me “ oh it will be alright with one side open ”.

Animals need basic simple shelters .

• Shelter from the wind .

• Shelter from the rain .

• Shade from the sun .

• Plenty of fresh air movement above animal height .

Left alone in nature , animals will always find natural shelters , So the starting point for animal housing has to be shelter and air exchange .

Animals like having a wall to shelter behind but need plenty of air movement over the top of them .

All of us probably understand about trying to keep the prevailing wind and rain to the closed side of a building , yet we all fail to leave enough openings in the ridge to allow warm stale air to rise up naturally and exit the building as soon as possible .

I hear all too often that we need a big tall building with lots of air for all these animals . The basis of this is totally wrong .

What is needed is a high rate of natural air exchange to keep your animals healthy , which overall will reduce vets visits and antibiotic use , possibly saving you thousands of pounds annually , all for a bit of time planning and no more expense than a couple of thousand upfront to begin with .

All too often I get told we have to put a fibre cement roof on livestock housing to stop the condensation . This approach can have a disastrous effect on animal health because it absorbs the condensation and hides any ventilation problems .

You only get condensation through a build-up of humidity , if this is happening there is a ventilation problem .

You have to do something to increase the air exchange .

A more significant volume of air won ’ t increase the air exchange it will probably only exasperate the problem .

Your starting point needs to be air exchange and getting the correct number of air exchanges per hour , and this needs to happen every day of the year , not just on windy days .