I had a busy few days this past weekend...I needed to fence a new paddock with the wire mesh "farm fencing" so that the sheep could move in to their new lambing pasture. It was previously fenced with simple wood railing fence that keeps the cattle in, but the sheep would easily squeeze out almost anywhere they wished. I spent a few hours on Saturday to install the mesh and then a few more hours to set up the "barn". This is one of those portable garages...we purchased it from Costco a few months ago for around $400. It went up easily without any tools. I know several people who have these shelters and a couple of them collapsed this winter with the weight of the snow. Another fellow I know of had his up all winter without incident because he would go out and knock the snow off from time to time.
We wanted a portable, temporary shelter that we could use from year to year to facilitate lambing in different fields as we saw fit. It isn't good to have birthing areas occupy the same area on a yearly basis...this goes for any livestock species.
The good thing about this new pasture is that we can keep a close eye on the ewes out our living room window. It is approximately one acre in size and is adjacent to all of our other pastures that total about 10 acres. We are due to begin lambing around May 25th.
No comments:
Post a Comment