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How not to build temporary windbreaks

9K views 17 replies 12 participants last post by  8582 
#1 ·
For the next instalment in my how to series, it will be how not to instead.

Needed more temporary wind breaks for where I am feeding cows this winter, only have 160 feet of portable metal frame windbreaks. Feeding on crop land to get the manure etc. where i want it directly. The more windbreak they have, the better they stay where I want. feeding silage directly from the pile into feeders across the fence, so windbreaks don't need to be portable, just temporary, and easy to remove in the spring when time is at a premium.

While I was hauling straw bales this fall, I found one with about 50 wraps of net wrap, it is solid blue and pink, quite pretty really. Not sure what went wrong, neighbor was baling on shares, but it gave me the idea that cows probably can't eat a bale through the net wrap, and can't even rub through that one. So I hauled a load (32 bales), made a semi circle of net wrap wheat straw bales 2 high on end, placed a portable windbreak on each end to keep the cow traffic away. Voila, instant temporary windbreak, and come spring, I can just use the bales up with nothing left over to remove. And no more work than hauling and stacking the bales anywhere else would have been. Made sure there were no ends exposed or damaged net wrap.

Feeding silage and wheat straw full of alfalfa and grass(underseeded), whereas the straw in the windbreak is just pure wheat straw. But apparently, it is tastier than anything else, so tasty that they ate it right through the netwrap, and proceded to undermine the bales. Afraid top bales will fall and crush someone. Rather than admit defeat and just unstack them, decided to wrap snowfence around the entire stack, 2 rolls high, held up with posts tied to each other through the stack, and broken crop lifters stabbed into bales to hold it up, the theory being that they can't eat through it. Would have worked fine with wood and wire snowfence, I hadn't been around the plastic stuff before, turns out plastic snow fence has all of the integrity of a politician, calves actually managed to pull straw out through the snowfence which quickly turned into eating holes in the snowfence. Meanwhile there is a dozen of the tastiest straw bales in and out of feeders, and another 10 hay feeders with silage. But the forbidden straw is tastier. Kept patching the broken snowfence with pallets so they can't get through, but they even managed to get that ripped and knocked down.

Almost all of the steel panels on the farm were tied up around the silage pile, but finally got a few freed up as the pile got a little shorter, set them up beside the straw, then drug out every old wooden panel that would hold together, and built a fence around the straw just to keep them out. So much for cheap and easy. Now have a bunch more stuff to remove in the spring, wasted money on snow fence, wasted way too much time. And so far this winter, there has been a total of about 5 minutes of wind, and more days above zero than below( I think September was opposite...) So haven't even needed any shelter. Very strange winter, very powerful Chinooks, but dead calm. Even while southern Alberta has been blowing away.

But what possessed cows with feed everywhere to try that hard to eat straw? Best I can think is maybe one combine had the concave not set right for a few passes and a few bales had some grain left in the heads. Can't find any unthreshed heads, but maybe the cows can smell it. Also a different variety of wheat, so might be tastier too.

Could have easily built windbreak fences on posts and disassembled them in the amount of time this shortcut has taken. Or I should have traded a few extra bales in exchange for putting a few extra wraps on some bales, only had slightly more than one wrap. Net wrapped bales from another baler have 4 wraps and they don't bother them at all.
 
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#2 ·
Ruminants also need roughage that spikes and scratches the rumen to keep their internals working properly (from a foggy memory it stimulates calcium release...(?))- maybe the silage isn’t quite rough enough to keep that stimulated and is why they’re seeking something with more roughage.

But I would have thought the wheat straw in your straw/alfalfa/grass bales would have been enough (?) for that job

Me thinks they’re just enjoying the psychological warfare/damage they’ve inflicting on you, have now got the internet, have joined the combine forum and a working towards this...

 
#4 ·
Idle mouths do the devils work. Cattle need salt to lick, something to scratch on (barb wire is the best), and the grass on the other side of the fence is always greener even in the winter.

I try to have places for cattle to scratch but they eventually wear out or go out of fashion.
 
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#7 ·
When I got the idea, I was only worried about them rubbing on them, as they do with everything that will stand still long enough, but I was wrong.

Dad used to get so upset at cows rubbing the mirrors off his pickup whenever he was out checking cows that he would park it next to an electric fence and connect it, then watch the indignant looks they get when they couldn't destroy it anymore.
 
#8 ·
Some guys have trailer mounted wind breaks 30' long drag a few of them on wheat pasture or other open pastures , 30'x8'' irrigation pipe works good too . trick is to make'em stout an tough to withstand many years of abuse . Here we have NO trees to block the wind and it is always windy .
 
#12 ·
How ironic, here where there are(were, before I came along), trees everywhere, and hardly any wind. It has been pointed out to me that I took out all the trees, then went to all this work to make windbreaks... But that was the point, to start with, not point in having all the manure end up feeding the trees, I want it feeding the crop/pasture, hence the portable windbreaks.

If anyone is building some, I do recommend that you don't run the skids cross wise, that how I built all of these, so that I can pick them up with the bale forks, and stack a few at a time to carry them. But if they aren't frozen down or buried, they tend to go on sailing adventures across the fields occasionally. Which is quite a sight to see. Found one on top of a week old calf once, it had only moved a few feet, and must not have been very long, since the calf survived.
 
#9 ·
After this 40 below sh!t and nothing starting I was forced to let the cows into the yard to eat what was sitting on the high boy. I didn't want to let them I to the stacked stuff just because hay is precious this year. One thing I did notice is they cleaned everything up and the calves hid under the highboy and picked up and droppings. When everyone had their fill they were quite content to lay around the truck and trailer. I am thinking of getting another cheap high boy and putting plywood on one side that can be easily removed. Feeder and shelter in one.
 
#11 ·
You are probably on to something. It would be a lot less waste than bale grazing, and not much more work. Maybe not so great in the mud when the hay falls into it, but at least it is easy to move to dry ground next time.

My wagon is 8 bales long, and only has pipes for cross bars, no ends, so the cows can eat their way all the way in. I use it to feed, hauling them out to dump into hay feeders. I do occasionally leave some very damaged bales on the wagon and let them eat directly off, and it works well. But not enough stalls for a large herd, would need lots of them or else the shy cows would starve.

Had a small disaster this week that ties both of these issues together...
I'm feeding with the track hoe, dumping silage directly into hay feeders across a panel fence from the silage pile. Then along one side of the pile I have a row of hay feeders for feeding straw, also with the track hoe. Works really slick, can feed 10 straw bales and fill 10 hay feeders with silage in a just a few minutes. About once a week I bring a load of 30 bales along side and unload 10 into feeders and the remainder into stockpile. Was swinging a straw bale from the wagon overtop of some portable windbreaks aiming for a straw feeder when the hoe blew a hydraulic line on the boom. The boom dropped really fast, right on top of two portable windbreaks( which were also serving as fence to keep cows out of the silage), and the end of one panel(also vital). Missed all the cows, a split second later it would have been much worse, missed the feeders and the wagon. But then I had a giant hole in the fence, with a really tasty strawbale plugging part of it, inoperable track hoe, and much too cold for my fingers to fix it. Oil everywhere. It was the last bale, so at least the cows were fed.

Still had about ~15 bales on the wagon, some still on top(2 wide), but it was too dark to take it down the road, so I hid it behind a brush pile till next time. Had a surprise calf the next morning(Auction purchase), and she went half way to the wagon to calve, windier, colder and no bedding there, so that is only natural, took some straw over by hand, which attracted a bunch more cows, ( straw is much tastier out in the wind and snow, then in the feeder it came from), and from there, inspite of the inclimate weather, a few decided to go and rub on the brush pile and happened upon the hidden wagon. So I had to start a tractor and go move the wagon before they undermined the bottom rows enough to collapse them all on top of themselves.

The blown line was a 4 bolt flange at the bottom of the boom cylinders, and it broke all 4 bolts, fresh breaks. Combination of cold weather, and 30,000 hours of fatigue I suppose. Lots of fun drilling out and extracting the broken ones too.

On a positive note, for most of the winter, we had absolutely no wind, or cold, and didn't need any windbreaks, so at least lately, with the advent of winter, all the effort of making windbreaks is justified. I did build a few more pipe frame windbreaks too.
 
#14 ·
I have cows, I have pigs. While cows can be rel *****es the appear to be angels next to the group of pigs I have in one barn right now. They have seem to taken great joy in disassembling the building. I've had to tighten feeders back down and replace wall brackets for sort pens and the new thing is total removal of alleyway gates. This mornong marked the fourth time in two weeks. I'm at a loss as to how they are managing to accomplish this. I've replaced bolts and added washers to the over centering flippers that were slightly off enough to allow lifting of the gate, once a pig makes the alleyway its a matter of minutes and he is pushing up all the other flippers allowing for total escape of more pigs. When the jail break is completed for all pens I can only assume that the next phase of total gate removal begins, which at that point allows them to remove the gates from the alley area to the back of the pen if you are lucky, if not they put the gates in the crapping area just to make a point.

Fortunately these assholes should only be around for 2-2.5 weeks.
 
#16 ·
Pigs are supposedly one of the smartest animals there is. You do know they are plotting to take you over and drive you crazy in the process, right? What might set them straight is to fry up a pan of bacon and just walk through the barn, you don't need to say a word, just look them in the eyes as you walk by.:staring-contest-smi
 
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