A Complete Analysis of the Key Points for Planning and Laying Out a Cattle Farm

When planning a cattle farm, it is generally best to choose flat land with a relatively large area, abundant surrounding water sources, and a location fairly far from urban areas. After choosing the site, build the foundation, walls, doors and windows, roof, cattle beds, feed troughs, passages, manure and urine gutters, and so on according to the number of cattle being raised.

How should a cattle farm be built and planned?

1. Foundation and walls: the foundation depth is 8-100 cm, the brick wall thickness is 24 cm, the ridge height of a double-slope cattle barn is 4.0-5.0 m, and the front and rear eave heights are 10-3.5 m. The lower part of the inner wall of the cattle barn has no wall skirting, to prevent water vapor from seeping into the wall and to improve the wall's firmness and insulation.

2. Doors and windows: the door height is 2.1-2.2 m and the width is 2-2.5 m. Doors are generally set as double doors, and up-and-down rolling doors can also be installed. Enclosed windows should be somewhat larger, with a height of 1.5 m and a width of 1.5 m, and a sill height of 1.2 m from the ground is preferable.

3. Site area: beef cattle production, cattle farm management, staff living, and other auxiliary buildings require a certain amount of site space. The size of the cattle farm can be calculated based on the area required per head of cattle and in combination with long-term planning. The area of cattle barns and other buildings is 15-20% of the total site area. Because of differences in cattle body size, production purpose, feeding method, and so on, the barn area occupied per head of cattle also differs. The area required per head of fattening cattle is 1.6-4.6 sq m. In open shed fattening barns with bedding, each head of cattle occupies 2.3-4.6 sq m, and in barns with partitions each head occupies 1.6-2.0 sq m.

4. Roof: the most commonly used is the double-slope roof. This roof form can be applied to cattle barns with relatively large spans and can be used for all kinds of cattle herds of various scales. This kind of roof is both economical and good for insulation, and it is also easy to construct.

5. Cattle beds and feed troughs: beef cattle farms mostly use group feeding with open troughs. Cattle beds are generally required to be 1.6-1.8 m long and 1.0-1.2 m wide. The slope of the cattle bed is 1.5%, with the trough end at a higher position. Feed troughs are set in front of the cattle beds. For cattle farming, fixed cement troughs are the most suitable, with a top width of 0.6-0.8 m, a bottom width of 0.35-0.40 m, an arc shape, an inner edge height of 0.35 m (on the side near the cattle bed), and an outer edge height of 0.6-0.8 m (on the side near the walkway). To make operation simple and save labor, it is better to build a high-passage, low-trough combined passage-and-trough design. That is, the outer edge of the trough and the passage are on the same horizontal plane.

6. Passages and manure and urine gutters: for face-to-face double-row cattle barns, the central passage width is 1.4-1.8 m. The passage width should be based on allowing feed carts to pass through, with a depth of 0.15-0.3 m and a slope of 1:50-1:100.

The above is the relevant introduction to cattle farm planning. I hope it is helpful to everyone.