Dairy Calf Flooring Built for Traction
We build flooring and infrastructure components for livestock operations that require durability and longevity, cleanliness and ease of maintenance as front line attributes. This article will talk about how we also build animal specific products that can impact your bottom line positively from day one. Our main goal is to give you a product that helps you meet goals, and outperforms the competition.
In this exploration of the types of products we offer to those working with calves, we want to cover how you can improve profit, and push more money to the bottom line through strategic planning and taking advantage of design attributes that improve overall health and comfort for your herd.
The bottom line is important, especially as the total cost of operations seems to increase day over day now. Let’s talk about how you can find a very good partner in ADA Enterprises if you are in the livestock game and need help improving margins and quality in your dairy calf population.
How having the best flooring for calf operations will benefit the bottom line
Sometimes it seems like companies just try to push a narrative for the sake of marketing. We feel extremely confident that if you examine why we design our products the way we do, and use the materials we use, that you will understand it’s not just about making claims.
We also feel very confident that the extreme durability and modularity of our products for the market segments we serve, makes us a best in class choice for pure ROI-driven business planning.
The important nugget of truth here is this: Better herd comfort and productivity, however that is achieved, almost universally equates to better bottom line financials for livestock operations, and dairy operations. In this case, we are highlighting dairy calves, and how we build a specific calf flooring product that can help you maximize profits and reduce injury and discomfort for many generations of your herd. We also have products that cater to pork industry needs, and our more general commercial offerings. We invite you to explore those products as well.
So what’s the point? Infrastructure costs are infrastructure costs after all. But that is the point. Our products cost less over the life of the product and do more to improve herd comfort and mitigate common injuries in dairy calves. And that equates to real world savings. Yes, admittedly there is a larger upfront cost associated with raised animal flooring built for traction compared to other options, but we believe the added value and benefits far outweighs the initial costs.
This is true for at least the following aspects of your operation:
- Lower total incidence of injury
- Lower total incidence of infection due to open wounds and ground contact for a larger portion of the life of the animal
- Lower maintenance costs as opposed to other raised flooring offerings by competitors
- Easy to clean, easy to maintain modular designs that minimize labor costs longer-term
- Strength and durability that exceeds general industry standards, meaning you get better product performance for more years compared to alternatives, generally
- Easy repair/replacement of our standardized components, which are all semi-custom or custom built for your facilities
These attributes mean better margins all-in, over the life of the product for your dairy operation.
Managing stress for dairy cows – How ADA Enterprises flooring can play a role
Dairy cows do get stressed easily – even if cows seem unphased by a lot of the world around them. Stress can cause problems in pregnancy and lactation, as well as for young calves learning to find their footing. In a facility that ideally prioritizes every life cycle phase of the dairy experience for the herd, these can have huge impacts if left unchecked.
Health impacts can range from hormone induced quality degradation thanks to stressors, to infection and herd disease transmission upticks. A big factor for dairy calves is the incidence of foot and leg injury. This is especially true in facilities that do not prioritize raised flooring. And even with raised flooring, not all potential solutions are created equally.
We have optimized our calf flooring to prioritize smaller holes and more consistent spacing, to prevent slippage and hoof damage. When considering the weight of an animal like dairy cows, this means maximum strength and highly consistent designs need to be prioritized in any raised floor build.
We believe that our flooring can prevent injury and disease transmission better than competitive products. Traction is a major consideration. The polyvinyl we use to coat our steel flooring products, together with the expanded metal design, offers good slip resistance, even when wet. We believe this is mandatory in a facility that will see cleaning operations, milking, feeding, and other processes that routinely introduce detritus and moisture. In the case of dairy cows – our products have distinct traction benefits over competitor products.
Less bacteria-based concerns, thanks to less incidence of cuts and scrapes, and no contact with dirt and mud thanks to the raised design. There is also a lesser chance of a dairy cow stepping through our strong deck design, and the evacuation of feces and urine means cleaner operations.
We also have easier to maintain products thanks to the plastisol coating we employ.
General benefits of the ADA Enterprises calf flooring built for traction available for calves
Our products have the following characteristics and benefits that can help you drop more value to your bottom line financials:
- Better footing thanks to added traction from the polyvinyl coating
- Easier cleaning and maintenance (can even be sanitized in autoclaves, and easily pressure washed or cleaned with bleach, etc.)
- Long-term durability for heavy animals
- Good evacuation of moisture and urine/feces and food debris
- Simple modular designs that incorporate standard components into a custom build for your facility
- Lower total cost of ownership through durability and a lessened cleaning regimen
- Small hooves don’t pass through our surfaces
- Better comfort for the animals
- Reduced stress on the animals
- Lower incidence of active contact with contaminants
We would love to see if our team of experienced representatives can help you design your facility upgrade or new buildout – it’s part of what we do – our insights may prove extremely valuable.
We offer a strong catalog of products, many of which can help you improve the total margins of your dairy calf operations. Have a look through our products and contact us when you’d like to see how we can help you improve profits through strategic upgrades on your raised flooring needs.
