Scott Spiegelberg, of Spiegelberg Implement Inc. in Weyauwega, WI, previously considered a barn for 50 cows a large project.
But with the surge in corporate dairy farming, Spiegelberg and other contractors who specialize in barn construction are working on projects that house from 1,000 to 5,000 cows.
Corporate dairy farming began growing in his area of Wisconsin in the 1990s, he said.
He needed a faster way to build a barn with less labor, and he is using a Power Curber 8700 multi-purpose slipform paver, manufactured by Power Curbers Inc., of Salisbury, NC, to help take him there.
Spiegelberg noted that area farmers are “astonished with the finished product and the amount of time it saves. If we can speed up the construction two to three weeks, that’s a lot of money in their pocket because of the interest they’re paying.”
The 8700 in the four-track position, equipped with a paving package, slipforms flat surfaces or alleys, in the barns that are grooved to prevent the cows from slipping as they walk to and from the building to be milked. Power Curbers’ engineers designed a false pan that creates the grooves as part of the slipform process. The grooves extend the full width of the slab and are .5 in. (1.27 cm) deep, .75 in. (2 cm) wide and 4 in. (10 cm) apart. The false pan is designed to clip on the bottom of the existing paver screed.
There are four walkway alleys in each barn, and they are 7.5 ft. (2.3 m) apart. After the alleys are finished, the 8700 is used in the offset pouring position to slipform beds for the cows. The beds are poured between the alleys and overlap them. An offset mold with 12-in. (30.5 cm) detachment is used to slipform the beds. The beds are 6 ft. (1.8 m) wide and vary in depth from 3 to 7 in. (7.6 to 17.7 cm). Grade is the key to successfully pouring the varying thickness. Spiegelberg said that the offset mold worked extremely well.
“The machine does the entire floor,” he explained. “It’s much quicker and the finished product is more exact. With human error, there’s more of a chance of variances. With the machine, it’s consistent.”
The barn’s metal and steel exterior walls are added after the slipformed alleys are in place.
“These barns are getting so large, and time and labor are major factors,” he said. “With the machine, it takes us one-third to one-half the normal time. We can double our production per day and the machine relieves employee fatigue. The machine takes the labor out and does a nicer job. I can almost go to one-half the crew size and more than double our production.
“We did four passes in two days pouring time. Normally, it is more than double that with more labor,” he added.
Wire mesh is fed through the front of the machine. This serves to ground the cows so that they don’t pick up stray voltage that would affect milk production, Spiegelberg said. The wire mesh process slows the machine’s production, he noted, and he is working on getting larger rolls. He says it takes five to seven minutes to switch rolls.
The barns that Spiegelberg builds range from 200 ft. to more than 1,000 ft. (61 to 305 m) long. The walkway alleys range from 12 to 14 ft. (3.6 to 4.3 m) wide, plus the extra width needed for the footing edge. The crew has poured one as wide as 16.5 ft. (5 m).
Spiegelberg Implement Inc. was started by Spiegelberg’s dad, Carl, and will celebrate its 50th year in business in 2005. Scott, who became owner of the company in 1982, said that the 10 to 12 dairy expansions that the company does each year are his most profitable part of the business.
“We are known for doing a quality job and holding the time schedule on dairy expansions, big or small,” he said. “This is why we are ’subbed in’ by a lot of the builders every year.”
Using a slipform machine will enable the company to take on more work. “We hope to expand in the area and do more of these projects and turn less down,” he explained. “I wouldn’t mind specializing in doing the big litter alleys and offset cow bed pours which are so much easier now [with the machine] and should be more profitable. That’s the name of the game.”
