A
Anonymous
As is usually the case this time of year, I'm getting sick & tired of going out to feed round bales and having to navigate through an absolute quagmire in an attempt to move my round bale feeders. And I'm sure the cattle suffer from trying to feed in knee deep mud. My place gets a lot of rain in fall & winter and I have what we refer to as "black gumbo" soil in my sacrifice (feeding) pasture.
I'm thinking of building some large circular concrete feeding pads, but I'm concerned about whether or not the cattle standing on such a hard surface for long periods of time will cause foot damage. A local "old-timer" said he thought it could be a problem, but could not really give me any meaningful elaboration on the subject. Does anybody here have an experience with this? Don't dairy cattle spend a good bit of time on concrete? Or maybe they are actually on a hard surface for a fairly brief milking period twice a day?
I'm thinking of building some large circular concrete feeding pads, but I'm concerned about whether or not the cattle standing on such a hard surface for long periods of time will cause foot damage. A local "old-timer" said he thought it could be a problem, but could not really give me any meaningful elaboration on the subject. Does anybody here have an experience with this? Don't dairy cattle spend a good bit of time on concrete? Or maybe they are actually on a hard surface for a fairly brief milking period twice a day?