Hard day today

Went to the barn this morning what a surprise. Seems the milking short horn wacked the water bowl overnight so hard the pipe broke. Had 3 inches of water on the floor in front of the curb were they eat there hay. I had to get the submersimable pump to get the water out. I dont like to push it into the gutter, because it makes the manure so sloppy it just makes a mess going out of the barn. Went and got a schedule 80 pipe, T fitting and nipple and put it back together. No leakes so far. How do you guys like the water bowls, in the stall facing the cow, or the gutter, or out in front of the curb were they eat there hay? J

had that happen at the dairy twice in one week boss said hasnt had that happen in 25 years so I bought at water meter that cuts the water flow after a set amount of gallons from hogslat.com so if the cows break it it only runs 300 Gals max on the floor instead of flooding the whole yard

A friend of mine was babysitting the dairy heard of a neighbor for a week, I was the simple-mineded help.

We showed up one morning, and water was running out the front door. It was 4 degrees outside.

Cow kicked a water line loose.

That was a long day.

Neighbor thought we did a good job when he got back home.

--->Paul

what valve was it? i looked on hogslat but wasn't sure what i was looking for. we have spring vats, and a valve like you described would keep us from finding empty vats when we hit the barn some morning. you know its going to be a long day with 120 cows and no water stored up.

I like having them away from the bedding but the stalls don't always work that way in these old barns. Barn's been flooded three days in a row now, one of the joys of having a 130 year old barn built where the snow melt has nowhere to go but THROUGH the barn.

my sympathies on your flood. btdt. after our conventional barn burned, we built a freestall. no more water buckets, no more barn cleaner. yay!

Yep. Whoever invented tiestalls should have been drawn, quartered, set on fire and dumped in a lake.

Always a joy to find. This past summer my dad installed an auger ion place of the slide for the barn cleaner. Makes a world of difference when a pipe breaks.

Had one break about a month ago. All in the gutter, and up through the auger. No problems getting slop out of the barn. Still runs away once it's outside, but that isn't as big of a problem.

Donovan from Wisconsin

There is a valve that can be put in a line to detect a large flow of water, and shut off. I have never used one, but I know they are out there some where. Stan

I have to disagree with the other guys, I will take a comfort tiestall barn anyday. Its a whole lot easier to push the button on the gutter cleaner and in 20 minutes its all taken care of while I do something else. I can stay inside the whole time mixing feed and in 30 minutes of driving the feed cart around, everyone is fed. Freestall/parlor setups where cows are walking and standing in slop all day is for the birds. Having to always be outside in the weather getting feed and feeding calves isn't fun for anyone.
I have had barns that had the water bowls facing both directions, my first an old stanchion barn with the bowls to the gutter. The water bowls were hard plumbed in so unless a cow hit the pipe hard enough to break it, it was pretty slop free. I had a pretty steep chute to the gutter cleaner so it took alot of sawdust to get it cleaned up when there was a leak.
The second setup had all the bowls forward over a recessed manger. Each manger had a drain in the end furthest from the milk house with a 3 inch PVC plug in the drain. These drains went and drained into the gutter. This barn had a liquid setup with slurrystore and inground pump in the barn so there was no gutter chute to have to go up. This was by far the best setup because you never had to worry about stall beds being wet and even if the manger was wet, it was easy to correct. The only bad thing is each bowl was fed by a 14" piece of hose off the topline. And hose just finds the worst time to burst.

all my pipes are above. i got nipples so i can just run like a small garden hose down to the cups. makes it easier to fix and also they can take more abuse. all my cups are on the gutter side of the curb. really sucks cleaning barn when one starts leaking or i have water problems! i want to get an auger but money limits that!
DF in WI

It doesn't seem to matter which way the bowls face. We have some back. Most are ahead. Some low. Some high. The only thing consistent is that we have trouble with every damn one.
We;ve had broken pipes. We've had cows get their tie chains or neck chains caught in the valve and hold the valve on, we've had cows get loose and turn a gate valve on with their tounge... and a few more variants that escape me right now.
On more than one occassion we've arrived in the morning to see brown water and silage running down the driveway (in -20 C), coming through the milkhouse. Mangers full. Gutters full. Everything full.
I think that was the day I cut the hole in the barn cleaner slide so that if it did fill the gutter, at least it would run out that end into the manure pile.
To say that I hate tie stalls, water bowls and barn cleaners is an understatement...

Rod

Money was tight for us too, but we either had to replace the slide, or bust out concrete and go all the way to install the auger. Got a rebuilt Badger auger (new auger, bearings, same auger tube) for a couple grand less than new.

It keeps the barn a LOT warmer because it's much easier to seal up, and the auger pulls the water out no problems. NO more having the chain running around 2-3 times to get all the slop up the slide while pushing in bedding to soak it up and help push. I'll bet we use 2-3 less loads of straw/year. Makes a difference when we chop 12-15 loads a year, and sometimes we run out 3-4 weeks before we have more to chop the next year.

Donovan from Wisconsin

the brothers i once worked for thought tie stall would be great until they had a barn fire.
they had lever lock stanchons unlocked them and opened a door the cows ran out.
dave and jon both said if we had tie stalls we wouldn't have saved many as they were fighting to get out.

Man I hate to hear guys that feel that way. I would give my left nut to be able to walk into a barn full of cows again. I milked my own cows for 8 years in 2 different stall barns. A really bad situation of family drama caused me to have to sell the cows in 2001. I have a small herd going again now, have 15 head, 3 in milk and 12 heifers, working towards starting shipping again. I have found 3 decent stall barns locally, just have to work out the details yet. Hoping before 2010 to be back in the biz. Well the price outlook may affect that a bit.

I have to agree with BlinWMI on the stanchion/tie stall barn. I grew up milking in a stanchion barn. When I moved here I worked for a dairy and milked in a parlor. The stanchion barn was warm in the winter with no heat, the cows were usually pretty clean(except when the barn flooded :x ).,we used pine sawdust for bedding and that always had a nice fresh smell. It was a lot harder on your knees but I would love to find a stanchion barn, they are just non existant around here...I do remember the days of broken water bowls, busted pipes etc....Jim

I built a new barn in 1977- went with the New York tie stall and rubber mats. Tie stall is a single 1 1/4 inch pipe which doubles as the water line. Biggest beginning headache was three weeks of leaking valves because of steel chips in the line (from tapping holes) not flushing out. Half dozen a day was common for awhile. Often wished for a low pressure valve. I used nipples and plastic milker hose down to the cups on the inside of the stall, so a loose bracket would let the cup move without breaking anything. Rather have wet bedding than wet feed- bedding gets changed every day anyway. Barn cleaner was horizontal, going into a manure pump under the floor, so messes weren"t bad. Some neighbors used hydraulic hose instead of plastic. Regarding letting cows loose in a fire- keep a bolt cutter in the barn. Cows will back up when scared, and the chains can be clipped easily- not as fast as uni-lever stanchions, but cow comfort is much better with tie stalls. Cow comfort is an everyday issue, barn fire should be way less than once in a lifetime.

I looked on Hogslat and they changed their website it used to be under irrigation or green house but now its not there so ill keep looking to find it for you sorry about that

THe valve is in there magazine cant find on web site tho but Farmtek has them Called a Bermadon Volumetric shut off valve

http://www.farmtek.com/farm/supplies/prod1;ft1_plumbing_accessories-ft1_valves_gauges_regulators;pgwr1704.html

Dave