Features of the bovine facilities

Dear readers, the livestock production support facilities aim to provide comfort to bovine animals, they also facilitate feeding, sanitary work, milking among other activities carried out by the producer as the basis of herd management. The characteristics of the infrastructure will depend on the number of animals and the financial capacity of agroecosystems.

When it comes to building new facilities for dairy cows, a good design saves costs and maximizes performance, aspects such as the size of the aisles, the cubicles, ventilation, lighting and the placement of the troughs and feeders are elements that determine a good cowgirl, therefore, good planning is required for its construction.

The first aspect to take into account is the orientation of the cowgirl some producers mention that cowgirls should have a Northeast-Southwest orientation, since, it protects from lateral and zenithal exposure to the prevailing winds and reduces the solar incidence in summer. On the other hand, the roofs can be covered with asbestos-cement, acerolit supported on iron trusses and covering the entire width of the shed.

The cowgirls are distributed with a waiting pen that are the pens that surround the milking parlor, in which the animals that are on the forage surfaces are received, these animals are kept inside the cowgirl in some spaces intended for rest before entering the milking and after the milking there are other pens where the cows sometimes stay with the calves.

In these support facilities for production known as cowgirls the main activity is the milking of milk cattle, the type of milking methodology will depend on the economic conditions of the producer and can be manual with the support of the calf or mechanical without the calf with stimuli performed by a specialized team for milk extraction; in these areas there must be health standards that allow to obtain a harmless product free of pathogens.

There is also an area to keep the calves, which must have a living space and good ventilation in tropical areas where temperatures are high, in the facilities there are also sleeves that are a kind of corridors that allow animals to be moved and perform some tasks such as vaccination.

These spaces must have troughs and feeders that are usually made of concrete and are located in the livestock waiting areas, when the troughs and feeders are installed, the appropriate space per animal should be considered and / or be dispersed to avoid problems between the animals. Therefore, the delimitations that allow the separation of the feeders would be a good strategy to guarantee the consumption for each animal.

Another aspect to consider in these facilities is the type of floor that, according to certain veterinarians for hygienic reasons, should always be concrete, but slippery floors, very inclined and with texture changes should be avoided. There are also embarcaderos, bretes, romanas and pediluvio, as for the embarcaderos they should face north or south to prevent sunlight from being received from the front, the embarcadero should provide a flat but not smooth surface at the exit of the truck and have an inclination of no more than 20º-25º.

As for the brets, they are structures that serve to hold horses, cows to facilitate that they can be shod or cured.They are also used for insemination and gynecological examinations, which facilitates the work especially when it is required to perform procedures where adequate restraint is needed and limit the lateral visibility of the animal. Another important instrument in the cowgirl is the Roman which is nothing more than a scale that allows to determine the weight of the animals; there is also a foot bath commonly known as a paw wash, which is usually placed at the entrance of the cowgirl with the intention that the animal when it enters introduces its paws and disinfects them, it is a hygienic measure to prevent the proliferation of pathogens.

Finally, as for the type of milking that should be used in a livestock production unit, I think that everything would depend on the financial availability that the producer has, although when referring to technological efficiency, mechanical milking would be an optimal investment for the milking of animals in a more efficient and hygienic way if the health protocols are complied with.