Monthly Barn Report: June

If May was exciting for the exterior and frame of the barn, then June was equally exciting for the interior. Here’s the Monthly Barn Report: June. I think June can be summed up in two words: concrete and robots! We kicked June off right with our first big pour on June 1st. The first pour was the eastern outside feed lane.

It just happened to be really hot that first week of June, so we didn’t have to worry about the concrete drying. The boys thought it made a great dance floor and were already discussing the best location for a basketball hoop. And the dogs appreciated a cool place to lay down. After the first outside lane was poured the work moved to prepping the first cow alley and also starting on the robot rooms. This next cow alley is where the cows will stand to eat. Being a free flow barn the cows also have access to the robots from any area of the barn. So they are free to move around as they please. In the robot rooms the drains and conduit were laid for the underground and the floors to the rooms were poured first on June 3rd. The cow alley was poured on June 6th, when we got to enjoy temperatures over 100! We were definitely glad for the roof being on to provide shade and it was a good test of the ventilation. It was very pleasant to be working in the barn even in those temperatures! After the alley was poured the robot platforms were next. The two Delaval VMS robots (check out this link here if you are curious as to how they work!) had made their way from Europe by slow boat and were ready and waiting to be placed as soon as we were ready. We also poured one of the middle cow alleys this week as well. The interior concrete was really coming together quickly.  With the robot platforms ready we were able to move to robots into the barn on June 9th. It definitely was an exciting day to finally have them in the barn. Made it feel really real to place them on their platforms!! It was little nerve wracking to be moving them, but we had a great equipment driver and everyone keep a sharp eye out. The move actually went perfectly and everything was right where it was supposed to be on the platforms. Couldn’t have asked for a better placement day. We also poured the western outside feed lane this day as well. It was a busy day! The boys were excited to have the robots in the barn and had to be the first “cows” to check them out! With the robots in, prep work moved to the platforms for the cows’ freestalls.This is the beds where the cows lay to rest. After much discussion and looking at our options we decided to stay with the same stalls that we have in our current barn. Very unconventional, but they have successfully worked for us for the past 30 years so we thought we’d give it a try  in the new barn. The stalls have pieces of tires that are specially cut into sections embedded into the stall concrete. It was a lot of work to get the tires cut, just ask Ben, but these tire pieces create the perfect mattress for the cows. It is also a lot of work to get the tires placed while the concrete is being poured for the stall platforms. We poured the first stalls June 12th and after some fine tuning had a pretty good process to getting the tires laid in correctly. To be able to reach all the places tires needed to be layed we poured the platforms in two halves, the second half was poured June 15th and then the dry cow stalls June 19th. We poured the last stalls June 22nd and it was definitely nice to have that done! It was a family job with everybody pitching in to help get them done. With the stall platforms completed we moved onto other concrete jobs. The eastern outside retaining wall was poured, numerous crossovers between the alleys, lots of curbs and we ended the month pouring the clean access walk way down the middle of the southern end of the barn. June was concrete, concrete and more concrete! It was great to see the interior of the barn shaping up though. It really started to feel like a real barn! Stayed tuned for what all went on in July!