Wire pen inside barn for sheep - will this work?

[Stephine]

Yeah i dont know what math I was doing there lol.

We bed with straw during winter and lambing season, the rest of the year they get bare dirt. We have tried year round straw but ours seem to eat it for some reason even with free choice hay. Also tried wood chips but they dont seem to last long for us before they are just all piled around the edges of the shed and bare dirt in the middle again. We do get a lot of rain though which means they walk the chips into the dirt so you may find woodchips work well for you being you are more dry. I know some other use packing stone then straw on top as well. In our barn with the concrete floor we use straw for our pigs in the cold months.

You just have to experiment and see what works for you.

That’s interesting - is the bare dirt working for you? Will it start to smell from the pee? We have a dirt floor and don’t need anything for warmth for wool sheep, that’s for sure, so bedding here would just be for cushion and to keep things sanitary. Pee is a new one for me.... our horse goes out in the paddock to pee and keeps her stall nice and clean. But she of course doesn’t have to be locked up inside. And chickens don’t pee... Ok our bunny, but that was on a much smaller scale...

 

[misfitmorgan]

No bad smell. Our sheep shed is a carport that someone built a wooden frame around so it has side walls and a roof but the end walls are not full walls, they only have wood down to the height of the sidewalls so basically just covering the peak part. In winter we close one end wall with 2 sheets of galvanized roofing tin to stop the wind whipping thru but even in winter with straw we dont have problems with smell. It stays dry inside even in winter, in the spring we scrap/shovel any build up out down to bare dirt again. As long as you have air flow you should be fine, if it isnt working for you try hay or wood chips down the road. Any setup you have can always be changed later if it isnt working for you, which is nice.

Don't over think it to much. shelter, hay, loose minerals, and occasional grain if you are breeding....thats it. You can make a fast hay feeder out of the cut off part of the cow panel if you need one just for sheep. We have done it many times and it works out great. Tons of hay feeder ideas on google just look for DIY sheep hay feeder if you need ideas.

 

[farmerjan]

If you only have the three and you are only looking at nightime lock up, get 1 panel, bend it in half, and make an 8x8 pen in the corner. put some shavings down and some straw on top... then you can take and shovel out the wet straw and shavings that will collect any pee.... It will keep them cleaner to have the straw on top... or if you are wanting to shear them for the wool, then just use straw a little deeper. But the shavings underneath will collect the moisture better than the straw, that will filter the pee through it more. Make sure the doors and all are predator proof so no cougars can get in. And SHOOT any that are harassing the livestock. Don't know CA laws... you can practice SSS if necessary to protect your livestock and no one the wiser.

 

[Baymule]

I deep litter my sheep with waste hay. We park a round bale with cow panel sections on 3 sides and a hog panel section on one side because our ram’s head won’t fit through a cow panel hole. We haven’t cleaned it out yet, since we had 100 year record breaking cold last winter, I put down lots of hay. It’s rained nearly ever since, LOL. We spread it in the garden or on the pastures.

 

[misfitmorgan]

I would say @farmerjan and @Baymule methods are probly closer to ones you will prefer as they are both in warmer climates, I live in michigan and the weather is much different here then hot//warm places so we do things different.

 

[Cotton*wood]

We use deep litter too--old garden mulch hay, and yes, they nibble on some of it. We basically only had them in there during the deep freeze last winter, and a few other times. But I would just put a little more on top whenever I could see too many turds. It soaked the pee right up. It's always been very pleasant to sit on and hang out with the sheep. I only cleaned it out recently when it seemed like it was getting piled too high.

Our stall barriers are made with an old wrought iron fence (which came with the barn), and I put cardboard and narrow pieces of plywood along the bottom to keep the lambs from popping through when they were little. It's just a corner of our barn. Here is it with our three new sheep waiting to be integrated with the rest of the flock.

 

[Stephine]

I finally finished knocking down all the tall grass in their summer pasture (some of the needle grass in there, with the awns still on, so I broke it up with the back of a wide rake, which knocks the seed heads off). Late this morning I had their waterer, feeder etc set up and we took them up there. It was hilarious! Our neighbor came and helped - she walked backwards with a tub of hay in front of them. I had the tamest one on a leash (new for him and he bucked a few times right out the gate but did pretty well after that). I had the bucket with the pellets and called to them over and over and gave out small handfuls on the way. With one on leash, the two others really didn’t want to take off on their own - plus one of the loose ones is very very food motivated. We hit a rough spot when we came to a place where my husband had accidentally turned on the wrong hose for a while and greens had sprouted. But they quickly decided that pellets were more interesting and followed me again. The dog offered to help bit he was so excited I had to ask him to stay back and watch….
I wish someone had filmed us! Anyway, we got them to their pasture without major incident and after finishing their breakfast they raced around it for a while, some full stretched gallops some binkies and sproings. So cute to watch. Then they got to meet the Arabian (their pasture neighbor) and spent at least an hour with that meet and greet. Both horse and sheep were curious and friendly. They have been hanging out near each other all afternoon. Horse seems glad to finally have some company again (her very old (40yrs) mustang buddy died a couple of years ago. Now for the return trip to the barn in about an hour…. hopefully it‘ll be easy because they know their stall….?

 

[Stephine]

 

[Stephine]

Going back was a piece of cake! I had three helpers and the dog (who was overly excited and had to be reminded to cool it the whole time - he really just wants to give them a good sniff and clean up….) which was complete overkill. Apparently they have thoroughly learned that sunset means dinner in their stall, and they all came along readily, with just a few stops to hand feed some pellets. It is so helpful that there are only three AND I have one on leash. When they get a little scared and want to bolt, one is staying with me and so the two others come back immediately after the initial hop. My Pip is walking on leash like a champ on his second try today. I am certain the pellet bucket helps a ton, but still. I am using a large dog collar and leash. Seemed simplest. Once they caught sight of the barn they were actually going ahead of me. No problem getting them in their stall, that’s where they wanted to go. So I am breathing a big sigh of relief. Pretty confident I will be able to do this alone within a day or two. Yay!