sheep housing

390kid

I have 2 old byres that I'm thinking of tidying up to house ewes at lambing this year. I was wondering has anyone done something similar to this or is the time and money better put into a new shed from scratch? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Siamsa Sessions

We're planning something similar - tidying up some old cow cubicles to house ewes for winter. The structure and roof is sound so mostly cleaning and setting up someplace to feed them.

If we get adventurous we might even set up a small holding pen and race for the days we have to do something with them and it's lashing rain out.

Don't have numbers for it, but I'd imagine tidying up what you have would be cheaper. All depends on how many you have, how much work is involved in the tidying up, etc.

Bunnyslippers

I've done that in the past and as long as ventilation and drainage are good, it's dry, easy to clean down or lime between lambings you should be fine with lots of straw. I've used pallets as walls before in lamb pens too, before I bought galvanised ones, as air can get through and can be chucked at the end of the season! Depends on how many sheep you have though and the size of the building, new buildings aren't cheap but maybe better as you can build what you want, so depends on how big your budget is!:)

390kid

Feeding and cleaning would be the two biggest to get around for me, have you already got water plumbed to it?

390kid

Bunnyslippers wrote: »

I've done that in the past and as long as ventilation and drainage are good, it's dry, easy to clean down or lime between lambings you should be fine with lots of straw. I've used pallets as walls before in lamb pens too, before I bought galvanised ones, as air can get through and can be chucked at the end of the season! Depends on how many sheep you have though and the size of the building, new buildings aren't cheap but maybe better as you can build what you want, so depends on how big your budget is!:)

I haven't that many only 25 to lamb this year. Budget would be tight me being from cavan and all!!! Have you any pictures of the work you done? I can see ventilation being a problem with my plan of action

rangler1

390kid wrote: »

I haven't that many only 25 to lamb this year. Budget would be tight me being from cavan and all!!! Have you any pictures of the work you done? I can see ventilation being a problem with my plan of action

Adequate trough space is very important, fighting for feeding space can and will cause abortions, allow eighteen inches per ewe at least for meal feeding,
It's not as important for hay/silage as they don't have to fight if it's under there noses all the time

390kid

rangler1 wrote: »

Adequate trough space is very important, fighting for feeding space can and will cause abortions, allow eighteen inches per ewe at least for meal feeding,
It's not as important for hay/silage as they don't have to fight if it's under there noses all the time

Would you be allowing the 18 inches as average or would you be inclined to give more to twins and triplets? I'm fairly green on this line with them

rangler1

390kid wrote: »

Would you be allowing the 18 inches as average or would you be inclined to give more to twins and triplets? I'm fairly green on this line with them

We wouldn't have big ewes here, average about 75kg, but i find 18 ins plenty for singles and twins, triplets sometimes need extra care.
If I haven't enough space in the main feeding passage, I put walk through troughs instead of gates as pen dividers at right angle to the main feeding passage to supplement it, my walkthroughs are 12ft and i can throw the meal from the end, so don't need access. also i can slide the walkthroughs left and right to make pens bigger and smaller

orm0nd

rangler1 wrote: »

We wouldn't have big ewes here, average about 75kg, but i find 18 ins plenty for singles and twins, triplets sometimes need extra care.
If I haven't enough space in the main feeding passage, I put walk through troughs instead of gates as pen dividers at right angle to the main feeding passage to supplement it, my walkthroughs are 12ft and i can throw the meal from the end, so don't need access. also i can slide the walkthroughs left and right to make pens bigger and smaller

possibly another option, might be to let the ewes out to a yard to eat meal,

a few disadvantages with this system though, including coming in with wet fleeces in rainy weather.

Username John

orm0nd wrote: »

possibly another option, might be to let the ewes out to a yard to eat meal,

a few disadvantages with this system though, including coming in with wet fleeces in rainy weather.

We used to do that - and it worked fine. But like you say, wet fleeces are a pain. It makes having to do anything with them messy...

As Ormond said - its an option, but one I'd try to avoid if you could...

390kid

Username John wrote: »

We used to do that - and it worked fine. But like you say, wet fleeces are a pain. It makes having to do anything with them messy...

As Ormond said - its an option, but one I'd try to avoid if you could...

Ye I think it's just going to be a case of trial and error until I find the best one that works

serfspup

390kid wrote: »

I have 2 old byres that I'm thinking of tidying up to house ewes at lambing this year. I was wondering has anyone done something similar to this or is the time and money better put into a new shed from scratch? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

what are the dimensions of the sheds?

390kid

It's 13 ft long and around 7ft wide with a 3.5ft channel in the middle for both doorways, the adjoining byre is the same size with the doorway in the corner.

AntrimGlens

Resurrecting an old thread.

Okay, so i'm going to bite the bullet in the next few weeks and am putting up a proper sheep house.

Background
Currently I'm running 230 hoggets, bought as ewe lambs, run them over for the year and sell them on as hoggets (mules & b/f). I've enough field ground to run this number over during spring/summer but make no use of the 50 acres of hill ground other than from Oct-Dec. I could easily go to 400/450 hoggs but as i'm working off farm it means trying to get silage into ring feeders out on rough grazing in the dark from Jan-March, which i'm fed up with, as i'm only wrecking the ground as it's fairly heavy and wet at that time of year.

Once the children are up a bit i may go back to lambing ewes, as i now have the ground well fenced and split into rotational paddocks, so grass management has improved a lot recently.

Whilst i'm not looking for any input on the economics of it I am looking for tips for building a shed that will be a one off and needs to be adaptable and flexible.

The shed is 100ft x 50ft, pre-stressed concrete panels to 6ft high and 6'6 vented tin to the eaves. I'm going back to get a price for galvanised steel as opposed to painted. I've no plans at the minute to put internal pens or divisions into it. I have plenty of hurdles if i need to sub-divide if some lambs are low bcs or need fed meal etc. I have crash barriers that I'll use to make up a feed barrier along the front and can set five bales along it. This will be removable as the posts will be set in sleeves into the ground.
I'll be using the hurdles i have to also make internal handling facilities and footbath, so at least i can work with them inside no matter what the weather is doing.

This is a similar shed but with internal pens and feed passage, and sketch of potentially how i would sub-divide for lambing ewes.

So what did you not put into your shed that you now wish you had, or what is in your shed that you couldn't do without - i don't want to get it wrong, but budget is not limitless either.

Green farmer

my shed doesn't have the clear roof cladding like the one in your pic, if I could change anything, I'd have them in a new build.

rangler1

AntrimGlens wrote: »

Resurrecting an old thread.

Okay, so i'm going to bite the bullet in the next few weeks and am putting up a proper sheep house.

Background
Currently I'm running 230 hoggets, bought as ewe lambs, run them over for the year and sell them on as hoggets (mules & b/f). I've enough field ground to run this number over during spring/summer but make no use of the 50 acres of hill ground other than from Oct-Dec. I could easily go to 400/450 hoggs but as i'm working off farm it means trying to get silage into ring feeders out on rough grazing in the dark from Jan-March, which i'm fed up with, as i'm only wrecking the ground as it's fairly heavy and wet at that time of year.

Once the children are up a bit i may go back to lambing ewes, as i now have the ground well fenced and split into rotational paddocks, so grass management has improved a lot recently.

Whilst i'm not looking for any input on the economics of it I am looking for tips for building a shed that will be a one off and needs to be adaptable and flexible.

The shed is 100ft x 50ft, pre-stressed concrete panels to 6ft high and 6'6 vented tin to the eaves. I'm going back to get a price for galvanised steel as opposed to painted. I've no plans at the minute to put internal pens or divisions into it. I have plenty of hurdles if i need to sub-divide if some lambs are low bcs or need fed meal etc. I have crash barriers that I'll use to make up a feed barrier along the front and can set five bales along it. This will be removable as the posts will be set in sleeves into the ground.
I'll be using the hurdles i have to also make internal handling facilities and footbath, so at least i can work with them inside no matter what the weather is doing.

This is a similar shed but with internal pens and feed passage, and sketch of potentially how i would sub-divide for lambing ewes.

So what did you not put into your shed that you now wish you had, or what is in your shed that you couldn't do without - i don't want to get it wrong, but budget is not limitless either.

10ft is narrow for the feeding passage, when you take into consideration that ewes putting out their heads.
I would rather not have the walk through trough, a long narrow shed is better and have enough trough space at the front of the pens.
Unfortunately the perfect sheep shed has nearly more feeding passages than sheep accomadation
I'd have the feeding passage of the lambing pens at right angles to the feeding passage or take away one of the pens for access otherwise how do you get access to the pens along the back wall. 5ft walkway is very tight there too if you're building from new......these are just my thoughts