Sheep winter housing

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
Lamb on them fine, lambs stand up absolutely no problem. Old wooden slats were only ones lambs struggled with if really small lambs then legs sometimes went between slats .
Are you farm assured? I’m pretty sure you can’t actually lamb on slats if farm assured?
 

Al R

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
West Wales
But you can move them into pens when they start lambing.......can’t help it if you’re a bit late and they’ve already lambed .
Fair enough 👍🏻😂
That was my understanding too was move them onto bedding for the lambing process itself....
 

Sheep92

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Ireland
Would outdoor slats work (West of Scotland) if you planted Leylandii or the likes around it, to create a dense, tall shelter to break the winds? Like a shed, but no roof...
A man in my sheep group has sheep on outdoor slats, seems to work well, biggest problem I'd say is collecting the water in a high rainfall area, would need plenty of shelter too, a cheap telegraph pole type structure could be put over it handy enough, seen pictures of very simple slatted sheep sheds at nsa highland sheep few years back
 

Paul86

Member
My main handling shed is 40’ x 25’ would it be worth slatting? It’s annoying putting straw in as it gets pulled down the races and into the footbath continuously
I'd expect I'd would work, if you raised the slats slightly and then had the floor done underneath so that the water could drain to a tank if there's a tank near hand. It wouldn't need cleaning out for a long time. Sheep wouldn't have as much grip on them as the straw though.
 

Paul86

Member
Lamb on them fine, lambs stand up absolutely no problem. Old wooden slats were only ones lambs struggled with if really small lambs then legs sometimes went between slats .
That's correct, have wooden slats here as well and ya will often see a small lambs legs go between the slats. Mostly with a set of small triplets. Lambs when their born on plastic slats have no difficulty starting doing up.
 

StormurShepherd

Member
Livestock Farmer
So you wouldn’t have them for actual mothering pens? Ie put them into slatted pens once lambed?

Sorry to bang my Iceland drum, but there the ewes + lambs were moved from the main holding pens into the wooden slatted mothering/bonding pens with just a sprinkling of sanitising powder and sawdust on top. Only downside was some of the afterbirth wouldn't go down or would hang either side of a crossmember, so I'd have to poke it or cut it with the scraper/pokey tool.

Also had similar issue with tiny lambs legs, but no issues with damage there.

If I was to do more contract lambing I'd be picky and want to work on slats again. Best way I've done it so far.
 
A man in my sheep group has sheep on outdoor slats, seems to work well, biggest problem I'd say is collecting the water in a high rainfall area, would need plenty of shelter too, a cheap telegraph pole type structure could be put over it handy enough, seen pictures of very simple slatted sheep sheds at nsa highland sheep few years back
The ones I saw were in the lee of trees or hedges, and were easily moved, they were on 50 x 100mm bearers and once the dung got near the grating they ran the ewes off and moved the whole lot to a clean spot.
 

Sheep92

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Ireland
The ones I saw were in the lee of trees or hedges, and were easily moved, they were on 50 x 100mm bearers and once the dung got near the grating they ran the ewes off and moved the whole lot to a clean spot.
Wouldnt get away with doing that here :X3: all effluent has to be collected
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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