Whilst outwintering may be an option for a minority, for most of you the approaching winter months means bringing the cows inside. This often brings new disease challenges, such as heightened levels of lameness or pneumonia. Have you ever thought about how your housing may be affecting these problems? I encourage you to look at your barns this winter with a careful eye and consider if there is anything you can do to change them for the better.
One of the biggest challenges we face over winter is poor ventilation. Some barns we use to house sucklers perhaps weren’t initially put up with them in mind. This means they don’t always optimize air flow by making use of the ‘stack effect’, which is the process of using body heat to warm the air and create a current. This current can then be used to circulate ‘dirty’ air out, and introduce ‘clean’ air, removing moisture, dust and pathogens along with it. However, if this ‘dirty’ air is left circulating, higher levels of disease and buildup of moisture may be experienced. I encourage you to look at your barn’s outlets (anything in the roof) and the inlets available (anything on the sides of the building) and consider whether you think there are any air-flow issues. Good indicators of suboptimal airflow are an excess of cobwebs or heavy condensation on the inside of the roof. Luckily, these issues are easy to confirm with a few simple tests; and can be fixed in a number of ways. I advise speaking to your regular vet to find an efficient way of doing this.
Another issue we see is stocking density. Perhaps you are down with TB and, as a result, find yourself overstocked. What challenges may this pose? Well, bedding becomes soiled more quickly (leading to dirty cows), pathogens spread more readily (leading to more disease) and feed/water competition increases (leading to poorer feed intakes, particularly in subordinate animals). A 500kg suckler cow requires approximately 6m2, with 75% of this being bedded areas. I challenge you to work out the lying space for your cows and see if it is adequate.
These are only two of the many problems you may have noticed, with water and feed access, bullying, poor access to handling facilities and poor drainage amongst others. All of these can be improved by making sensible changes to housing. Whilst changing a barn won’t happen overnight, some changes can be
simple, cheap and effective and make a huge difference to cow health and efficiency. I encourage you to ask your vet next time they are on farm, to see if there are any easy wins to be had out of your winter housing.
Written by, Imogen Rogers BVetMed PGDipVCP MRCVS
