Slurry Transfer Channel for Smiddiehill
New Slurry Channel at Smiddiehill has cows voting with their feet.
The Smiddiehill Holstein Herd is owned by the Corrie family, from Newtownards in Co Down. It is home to 400 cows, currently averaging around 8,000 litres.
The cows are calving the year round and in order to meet this need Richard Corrie, the man in charge of the herd, is committed to an ongoing investment programme, relating to all aspects of the dairy unit. This includes the ongoing maintenance and improvement of the buildings on the farm.
The most recent project undertaken, in this regard, centred on the construction of a slatted slurry transfer channel. The slurry transfer channel runs from the cow collection area adjacent to the milking parlour to the slurry tank under the main cubicle house on the farm. The slurry collected from the cows as they wait to be milked is fed into the slurry tank courtesy of an 8 inch pipe.
“Prior to the slurry transfer channel channel being put into place the cows were standing in their own slurry,” which wasn’t good for their feet.
“However, that problem has now been solved with the slurry transfer channel now in place.”
The slurry transfer channel is comprised of 4 No. 2 metre units, each 2.1 metres in height and 1.2 meters in width. The precast option was chosen for the job because it allowed Richard Corrie to get the improvements he wanted completed in a way that caused the least amount of inconvenience to the cows.”
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