Barn Updates

As is the 'norm' around here, things continually change and I need to be ready for it when it happens. A few weeks ago I applied for a job with Washington State University. I planned on moving and needed to make the barns as efficient as possible for the sheep to stay at the farm over winter until I could afford to bring them out in the spring. That may be on hold for now, but in the mean time my barn is FINALLY becoming much more efficient :)

Something that I wanted to do for a few years was build a better way to feed my sheep. Round bales are terrible on the fleeces, I lose ear tags on some of the sheep, and unrolling them take a lot of time and I have to feed them outside in a pasture.

This is the lean to our old dairy barn. This alleyway is used about 90% of the time when entering the barn now so I needed to keep the space wide open. The plywood used for the small square bale flakes of hay is perfect.  They fit in there snugly against the metal hog panel and still allows me a clean, open, bright place to walk.

Inside the pen shows enough feeder space for the 60+ Shetland adult ewes that will be here over the winter. There is room to add three more 8 foot sections, giving me head space for 24 more Shetland adult ewes if I ever needed it.

Below is the south side (left side in photo above) showing some of the feeders.

A better close up below showing only the smallest holes in the hog panel exposed, while using lightweight plywood for the top. The hay all fits in there (more actually on the north side) and still there is room in the small trough for the beet pulp and hay chaff that falls down. No eating on the floor (unless they eat the bedding/oat straw). Little to no hay on their backs or the neighbors' backs.

Reinforced mineral tubs. The ewes kept rubbing their butts on them and breaking/snapping them off of the board they were on. This makes them much sturdier.

Above is the ewe lamb pen feeders that I am using for now. they were 55 gallon plastic drums that I cut in half and screwed on boards for the ends so as to not flip them over. They are lower, and easier for the lambs to eat out of so I am using them in their part of the barn.

Above and below, the girls are approving of the finished feeders.

Above is my home made chute system. This used to be the manger of the dairy barn where we fed the cows and walked with he wheelbarrow. It works nicely for the smaller sheep and I can get an entire system within an area that wasn't utilized before. The middle aisle is for myself. Its not the largest area but this allows me access to both sides of the chute and the digital scale is to the right where the plywood 'gates' slide up and down to allow a new sheep to enter or exit. I've not had any jump over it yet and its low enough I can access the sheep ear tags and check eyelids and worm if necessary.


And below are two samples of the new Whistlestop rams I described in my last post. The 'white' fleece is actually a light badgerface ram (black based) yearling ram that I am SO pleased I got. He is everything I'm looking for in a rams: fine fleece, conformation, horns (my preference only), rare color pattern, depth of body and capacity yet still fine boned, and some unrelated lines to work with. He's a yearling that I hope to use a LOT in the future.

The moorit fleece is of a ram lamb. I was able to go through Jim and Brandy's entire flock and take my pick of the lamb crop. There was a ram lamb with wider horns but this one was finer in my opinion. They will both be going to quite a few ewes in the next week or two.

First crop of hay

Last year we fertilized several of our hay fields with sugar beet lime, organic substance that apparently did well. We had two smaller hay fields and got over 100 and 140 LARGE round bales for our cattle for the winter months! Last year we had only 150 total from TWO crops of hay from the same fields and same weather conditions! Fantastic!! We also fed oat straw to the cows during the beginning of the fall as they didn't need such high protein in their diets and they were just as fat and sassy as they were in years past when we fed them corn silage (shudders at the thought). All of the second cutting of hay will be small squares for the sheep. last year i needed about 1500 small squares to get through the winter and I had a few extra bales up in the hay mow. This year I think I will need about the same, as i won't have as many BFLs to over winter this year. But I'm excited for EXTRA hay as this stuff will be higher in protein and nutrition than last years hay, which was harvested from land that my dad is letting our neighbor rent this year.

I'm quite pleased to already know that there will be enough for everyone again this year to eat!

Hay!

Well its been awhile since we talked about hay.

We've now officially baled all of our first crop of hays for the beef cattle and sheep. I figured in a very worse case scenario, where we had to feed hay year round, I would need around 2500 small square bales to feed just the sheep for an entire 365 days. Obviously we are on pastures right now but I like to be 'doom and gloom' and always plan for the worst and then be pleasantly surprised at how much 'extra' hay we have in the spring.

The sheeps' hay is a timothy/brome/clover/alfalfa/blue grass blend. Several of the fields also had orchard grass in it as well. The girls should be quite content this winter with the nice green hays.

Our rotating pastures are also working well. They are currently on timothy/clover/brome/blue grass with a touch of alfalfa (its pretty mature so not as much bloat to worry about). They are complete pigs and are so spoiled! I let them into their new pasture this am after I fed them some grass hay and they came running BACK to me screaming! For no reason! They are fat, mineral tubs full, water tanks full, barn fan on...i just don't get it! :)

Off to unload hay for a while before I go off to work to spray yards for crabgrass!

Hay up is a good feeling

Tonight we put up 500 small square bales (60-80#) into the hay mow in the dairy barn that has been remodeled into my sheep barn. The nice thing is the upstairs (hay mow)is that it can house roughly 4000 small square bales. We do not stack the bales but let them fall. The weight of the bales if they were stacked, on the roof of the main level would cause it to collaspe! The barn is a good 80 years old and made out of strong Tamarack wood, so it will last the test of time (unless a fire or tornado decide otherwise).

I much prefer to feed the small squares for several reasons:
1. easier to lift, carry and portion out (round bales have to be peeled and then pitchforks of hay moved and it gets quite messy)
2. less mess in the aisles and outside of feeders
3. tends to be a better quality hay (round bales are typically baled after hay has been rained on or the need to get the hay up faster)(at least in this area)
4. There are hay holes to drop the hay down from above, near or in the feeders (talk about ease of feeding (or laziness!))

I have figured that if I had to feed hay every day from August 1st until April 30th I would need nearly 800 small square bales to feed the sheep, goats and mini horses. I know that there are at least 200-300 more square bales in this 20 acre feed that we can bale before we move on to the next field.

LAST year in the drought we got 80 bales off of the same field for second crop. Amazing what a little rain does huh?