Beef Dome Great Home For Cattle

Beef dome great home for cattle LIVESTOCK Buildings 13-1-26 You've never seen anything like this round "beef dome" built by a Michigan farmer to house 1,000 feeder cattle. The round design of the "beef dome" offers optimum feed bunk area per square foot of living space and makes it easier to pump out manure, says the owner, Albert Hass. "I would have needed a 36 by 500-ft. long rectangular barn to provide 1,000 cattle with as much living space and linear feet of feedbunk per animal as I've got in this round barn. A round barn was more practical to build, and also more economical because I used several innovative cost-cutting measures. The sidewalls are partially open, sheltered by evergreen trees which provide a windbreak. About 28% of the floor area is unslatted, consisting of concrete sloping toward the pit. The pit was constructed without crosswalls, and less reinforcing steel was needed because we used a unique construction method." Hass says he spent less than $150 per head to build the "beef dome" which compares to about $300 per head for a turnkey rectangular barn providing the same living space and feed bunk area. Much of the savings were realized because he acted as his own general contractor, casting all of the concrete work with his sons and experienced farm help. The 160-ft. dia. circular structure has a 120-ft. dia. opening at the center. Directly under this opening, Hass erected a 60 by 80-ft. shed to provide additional shade for the cattle. The roof is 12 ft. high at the eave and 25 ft. high at the center. The building is divided into four equal pens, each of which holds 250 head of cattle at 18 sq. ft. per head. The pens are separated by 5-ft. high concrete walls. There's a 120-ft. dia. slatted floor on top of a 12-ft. deep manure pit. A 3-ft. high feed bunk runs along the entire outer wall of the "beef dome". There's a paved alley for feed trucks all the way around the building's partially open walls. A row of 30-ft. tall evergreen trees was transplanted into a circle around the building to break the wind. "Cattle need three things - a dry place to lie down, fresh air, and protection from the wind. The slatted floor provides a dry place, open sidewalls allow fresh air, and the trees stop most of the wind yet provide some natural ventilation," says Hass. He uses only one pump to empty the entire 120-ft. dia. pit, with three permanently installed agitator guns in various locations throughout the pit. The agitator guns are equipped with nozzles that swivel 360?. Manure is pumped out through a permanent load-out pipe. Hass says a pit under a conventional rectangular barn requires cross walls for structural reasons as well as for convenience of agitation. As a result, pits under conventional rectangular barns are partitioned to match pen size. "After you empty one pit, you have to pull up the pump, cover the hole, move the pipe, move the cattle out of the next pen and start pumping again. In this round barn I only need to set my pump once to empty manure from the entire 1,000 head structure." To build the manure pit, Hass dug a 12-in. wide circular trench with a backhoe, set prefabricated reinforced rod in the trench, and poured concrete. After the concrete hardened he dug out the center of the pit and poured the floor. "This method of construction required less reinforcing steel," notes Hass. The side of the structure consists of 6 by 6-in. treated poles spaced every 8 ft. to form a circle 15 ft.beyond the circular pit. A solid concrete floor slopes inward from the feed bunk to the slatted pit. The feedbunk is attached to the outer side of the poles. The walls are wide open from a headrail above the feedbunk to the roof eave. James Geiger Builders, Harbor Beach, Mich., formed the roof sections, cutting edge sheets at an angle to fit the circular design. "There was less waste than expected because excess steel roofing off one edge was used on the other edge of each opposite roof section," says Geiger. A 12-ft. wide alley goes through the center of the "beef dome". It's used to drive "finished" cattle to a nea

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.