Straw bed shed fit out, Gorey, Co Wexford

We recently finished the fit out of a straw bed cattle calving shed in Gorey Co Wexford for George Steacy. The shed is a converted sheep shed. The feed passage is wide with a mixture of our own design feeding barrier and Jourdain headlock barriers.








George designed the special layout of the shed himself. He was particulary keen on incorporating our new 6 bar heavy duty dividing gate.

As the shed is a straw bed, George asked that we fit a second gate paralled to some of the dividing gates, these can then be swung out and joined penning animals along feed passage during straw clean out.





The drinkers used in this fit out were 'La Buvette'. We designed a special drinker panel for the drinker. In addition we also provided a protective tube for the water pipe. George also included insulation (see in red in the photo) after recent hard won experiences last winter.















One of the biggests features and challenges in Georges shed was the pen layout for calving cows. It consists of 4 pens with a chute running between them. Installed in the centre of the chute is a headlock gate. The gate was something George and ourselves spent some time designing to get right. George wanted a headlock gate similar to those found in calving gates but it had to be able to lock from both sides and that when opened, the gate would release the cows head and allow here to walk forward.
This means that if a cow should go down during calving, the gate can be opened, her head released and she can get up forward. Traditional calving gates don't usually allow this. In addition, Jourdain Operating gates were installed each side of the head lock to allow caesarean operations.

We intend to incorporate this design into a calving gate in the near future.