Handling facilities and confined beef barns are a significant capital investment for many producers across the state with producers investing up to $10,000 to $250,000 into these facilities respectively. The average lifespan of these structures can typically average 20 years or more. Ensuring not only the longevity and functionality of these structures has been an undertaken by the Livestock Systems Engineers in the Biosystems and Agricultural Engineer Department. In developing some of the recommendation for livestock structures, the Engineers have collaborated with animal science and agricultural economics to ensure that the structures design is as comprehensive as possible.

For the handling facilities updates, labor shortages and safety consideration for both the cattle and handlers are the most common rationale for updating a facility. 3-D CAD handling facility layouts were specifically created for 15 participating producers, and these designs will be used in a larger database of updated handling facility recommendations in the long term. CAD plans for low cost cattle platform scale systems have been distributed to over 1000 producers. Knowing the weight of their animals can save producers up to $200 a year in dewormer and antibiotic costs.

Environmental conditions play a significant role in beef production, and heat stress alone accounts for 2.3 million dollars in losses for Kentucky’s cow-calf operations annually. Consequentially for the producers building a confined beef feeding operations to control some of the environmental variation, proper ventilation is a must for infusing fresh air, controlling the temperature and moisture, and removing metabolic byproduct. Livestock system engineers have consulted with several producers before they build (since It is more cost effective to build the structure correctly rather than retrofit to solve an issue).  Adequate eave height, roof pitch, ridge vent, barn orientation, site drainage, proximity to other structures, waterer and feeder location, equipment dimensions, animal age, and other factors were all criteria that have been communicated with these producers to help them understand how to optimize the functionality of their investment.