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Northwest Iowa | In order to keep the cows dry enough, I would think it would take more straw than sawdust. Stirring would also be hard to do with straw, even if ground up before putting it down. I have a bed pack pen for my fresh cow group and the rest are in freestalls. The cost of bedding in the bed pack barn, is much higher on a per cow basis than the freestalls. Straw works if cleaned very often, say on a biweekly basis. Much more than that, it gets hard to stir up. Have tried ground corn stover, wheat straw, and oat straw, and soybean stubble here, and always go back to sawdust. I clean 4x per year with sawdust and that works best for us. We add fresh bedding on a weekly basis and get very little composting action. I stir 2x per day and it does heat up, but I don't think that it gets hot enough to actually reduce volume through composting. You have to use enough bedding that there is never anything sticking to the flanks of the cows, or your scc will show you that there is a problem. The lime idea may help, but I have not tried that in the pack barn. I wonder if it would get too heavy to stir easily. | |
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Compost/Pack Barn Question
