Bedding Sheep on Wool

[MRT]

Dry ewes inside on hay now until lambing. Had enough. Land is wet and reedy at the best of times. Straw is an actual fortune atm, wool a waste product. Put a few inches of straw down first to aid cleaning out, ripping the fleeces up as I go, going 50/50 for cover wool/straw and likely use more wool proportionally as I go. It will have to go through a rotary spreader at some point.

Anyone else done this before? How did you get on cleaning it out, rotting down and spreading? Assume if it ever gets to soil it will be helpful on a biological level.

 

[Tim W]

We've done it way back (when we had some woolly monsters)
At the time we were using lots of linseed and rape straw & hay as bedding
Wool took a while to break down into manageable bits
We mucked out the yards in April, composted at least a year turning a few times
Went out through a rear exit spreader and there were a few chunks of wool but no0t too much
This all went onto arable land and so was incorporated back in via plough/discs
Might be different if spreading on pasture?

 

[Bury the Trash]

edit
not sure about bedding as they will get hanged up with i should think around their feet
but as far as on out the groun d ....shoddy
good stuff


it dont rot down very quick, best ploughed in yes as above. good stuff and old idea.

as far a DD well it would hang up a bit on the drill i should think

 

[Agrivator]

I have used a fleece to prop up a ewe without the will to live, or to line a box with a weak lamb in it.

But if I ever use wool to be bed sheep, I have left instructions to have me sectioned.

 

[Al R]

Anything at shearing which isn’t a whole fleece gets put in the handling shed instead of straw, on a normal year of wool and straw prices it’s still cheaper. Have around 6-7cuM of it here after shearing, probably saves 1 bale of straw but it’s easier than muckheap

 

[MJT]

Have been putting all our wool under cows this year , 45 wool bags worth . Once a week or when they’ve had wet night it does a good job of soaking up a lot of the moisture .

Always put the dags and part fleeces and bits in the muck heap and can’t say notice it when spreading the muck

 

[sheepwise]

Have been putting all our wool under cows this year , 45 wool bags worth . Once a week or when they’ve had wet night it does a good job of soaking up a lot of the moisture .

Always put the dags and part fleeces and bits in the muck heap and can’t say notice it when spreading the muck

Know someone up here who did the same, reckoned it was cheaper than straw. He even made an enquiry to the wool board about buying some of their low grade wool for that very purpose.

 

[Mc115reed]

Put about 100 fleeces under my ewes before I brought them in then put straw on top the wool keeps coming back too the surface but is being churned up at the same time seems too be doing a good job of keeping there bed clean and dry though

 

[neilo]

I would think the muck coming out of the shed will want to be piled up and left, or maybe turned a few times, for a couple of years.
Otherwise there are going to be some extremely p*seed off muck spreading contractors about next year. Not only will they have string and plastic to cut off the rear beaters after they leave the dairy farms, but mats of tightly wound wool from sheep farms too.

 

[Al R]

I would think the muck coming out of the shed will want to be piled up and left, or maybe turned a few times, for a couple of years.
Otherwise there are going to be some extremely p*seed off muck spreading contractors about next year. Not only will they have string and plastic to cut off the rear beaters after they leave the dairy farms, but mats of tightly wound wool from sheep farms too.

Not only complaining about the plastic fantastic brigade but they’ll also have a good yarn about the wool too

 

[Tim W]

I would think the muck coming out of the shed will want to be piled up and left, or maybe turned a few times, for a couple of years.

= good muck management practice & will give a great fertilizer ---along with covering the muck heap to reduce nutrient loss via oxidation/leaching

 

[aspiringkiwi]

Know someone up here who did the same, reckoned it was cheaper than straw. He even made an enquiry to the wool board about buying some of their low grade wool for that very purpose.

Have also made enquiry to wool board re product for bedding. Interesting reply. No spare wool apparently...all sold (??? ) they do not think it viable idea. Probably blooming nicked it. So have resorted to business wales and farming connect for advice... shall wait and see. but all info on this thread re sheep and cattle bedding very interesting. Good to know others thinking along same lines.

 

[MRT]

Have also made enquiry to wool board re product for bedding. Interesting reply. No spare wool apparently...all sold (??? ) they do not think it viable idea. Probably blooming nicked it. So have resorted to business wales and farming connect for advice... shall wait and see. but all info on this thread re sheep and cattle bedding very interesting. Good to know others thinking along same lines.

Cleaned shed out yesterday, it pulled out fine, no trouble at all. Piled it up, its under cover at the moment, see how it spreads in a few months

 

[Tim W]

If anyone's keen i have a few sacks of wool they can have for bedding

 

[Henarar]

Bloody county was built on it and now we be on about using it to bed the animals FFS

 

[DB67]

Thinking of using it for bedding this year also but wondered about chucking it through a big shredder first so it won't clump up and will rot down quicker. Cost of doing that probably won't make it worth it but fed up of sending it away for nothing! Would be interested to know the values of it after it has been left a year to rot!!

 

[Whitewalker]

Any more results from these experiments ?

 

[MJT]

Sheds were mucked out start of March and muck tumped in field for couple months before being spread on fodder beet ground . Barely noticed much wool at all .Considering there was wool from 1400 ewes in the heap I’d say it had rotted down well .

 

[neilo]

Sheds were mucked out start of March and muck tumped in field for couple months before being spread on fodder beet ground . Barely noticed much wool at all .Considering there was wool from 1400 ewes in the heap I’d say it had rotted down well .

Did you turn it at all, or just heap it up as most would normally?

There’s obviously a nutrient value to it, but the thought of unwrapping muck spreader rotors by hand must put a lot off (me included).

 

[MJT]

No just put in tump like normal . Think the key is layering it with the straw when bedding down. I’d imagine if you chucked it all under the cattle at once then it would end up in big lumps but bedding with wool once a week and straw the rest of the time worked well . Never studied rotor on spreader immediately after but Put some new beaters on it last week and no wool wrapped anywhere .

Did you turn it at all, or just heap it up as most would normally?

There’s obviously a nutrient value to it, but the thought of unwrapping muck spreader rotors by hand must put a lot off (me included).