Keeping their housing clean

[mrbstephens]

Hello fellow animal keepers!
Usually I do massive amounts of research before getting into something new, but this time I had to jump at the opportunity before I was complete prepared.
I was give two Cotswold lambs a month ago. They are using a wood house that used to be a play house. It's sturdy and in excellent condition. It measures 6 X 8 and has a covered porch attached, a door opening and three windows. They have a fenced in yard that goes around it.
What I'm not sure of is how often to clean out their area.

This is what I've been doing and not sure it's right......I have straw inside their house and every few days I fluff up the straw a bit and add a fresh layer to the top. When the lambs make a mess of their hay I scoop it up and add it to their bedding also.

After a month, I felt it was time to scoop out all of their bedding from the house and replace with all new, fresh straw. I raked up as much of their poop off of the ground as I could, but man, it's everywhere and hard to scoop up. What do I do about that? Anything?

Thanks so much for your help!

 

[mrbstephens]

Hello fellow animal keepers!
Usually I do massive amounts of research before getting into something new, but this time I had to jump at the opportunity before I was complete prepared.
I was give two Cotswold lambs a month ago. They are using a wood house that used to be a play house. It's sturdy and in excellent condition. It measures 6 X 8 and has a covered porch attached, a door opening and three windows. They have a fenced in yard that goes around it.
What I'm not sure of is how often to clean out their area.

This is what I've been doing and not sure it's right......I have straw inside their house and every few days I fluff up the straw a bit and add a fresh layer to the top. When the lambs make a mess of their hay I scoop it up and add it to their bedding also.

After a month, I felt it was time to scoop out all of their bedding from the house and replace with all new, fresh straw. I raked up as much of their poop off of the ground as I could, but man, it's everywhere and hard to scoop up. What do I do about that? Anything?

Thanks so much for your help!

I'm also wondering if I should use diatomaceous earth to keep the house a little drier.

 

[mrbstephens]

 

[SheepGirl]

I've had six sheep in a 24x48 area for two months last year, and this year, I had anywhere from 1 to 4 sheep in a 8x28 area for seven months. I haven't cleaned out their pen or their shelter. Yes, manure is everywhere, but they are little dry pellets that aren't messy. The sheep keep the areas where they lay down clean and manure-free. So I don't worry about it.

However, earlier this year (maybe August or September?) we cleaned out the "sheep shack" (8x8 plywood building that's 4' tall)-- it had 1' deep muck (mud, straw, manure, urine) in it from the past year...it was getting gross, especially with how much I built up the straw over winter and then with all the rain during the spring/summer and it being washed into the sheep shack. So that was cleaned out...it will probably only be cleaned once a year.

 

[Singing Shepherd]

In my stall I completely shovel out all matter (hay, manure, urine, etc.) about once a month in the spring n summer because I feel the urine smell gets overwhelming, especially in the humidity. In winter I leave the bedding alone for longer and top it off with fresh hay occasionally. As well, my "barn" stall is the lower level (three sides underground) of a workshop building, and this makes me skittish about mold forming in the bedding leading to illness in my animals. So I may muck out the stall more often than other sheep owners. I bed with straw. However, this upcoming year I plan to have my large pasture baled and use it for bedding to save money. There are products that horse owners use to freshen stalls if you feel the house they are in gets too rank.

 

[kateseidel]

I have 5 Romney sheep. They have three small sheds (about 6 x 8), built on a slightly sloping dirt floor. I have gone through quite a series of things to keep them dry and reasonably clean. My goal was to give them a place so their hooves could be dry, that would not accumulate massive amounts of mud / manure, and that I could clean. I don't put any bedding down they have open access to 3 acres to roam about, and only hang out in the sheds when it rains). What has worked the best for me is to put down stall mats, and then smaller rubber mats with holds in them over the top. This provides relatively soft, slip-free, non muddy footing; urine runs out so it stays dry no matter how long they hole up in there (and this summer it was for weeks at a clip), and I can take out the smaller mats and sweep out the manure pellets when they start to look thick (I do this every couple of weeks).

D.E. really doesn't provide any significant drying action, it just cakes up when it gets wet. If you want something to absorb urine, Stall Dry or Sweet PDZ will work, but for the sheep, it was not up to the task of the constant volume. It is great for the chicken house, wonderful for sprinkling over a urine area, but I would not try to keep layers of it in the sheep pen