| 
Fiberglass
boat top with legs.
Fiberglass
boat top with legs.
Plywood
shed with handles for moving.
Pallet
& OSB Sheds with connecting shelter between them.
Pallet
shed in front, OSB shed at back, covered area between.
OSB
shed - not tipping over! Sharply angled roof for rain run off.
Pallet
shed with center divider.
Covered
area between pallet shed in front and OSB shed in back.
|
Shelter
& Management Sheds
Soay originally came from an island in the North
Atlantic where they found shelter in niches in the hillsides or in protected valleys.
But the Soay in the United States - at least on all the farms I've been to - are
accustomed to much more luxurious abodes.
Management
Shed
Some kind of small building that you can stand erect in will make the management
chores with your Soay easier on you and the sheep. We are just starting on an
8' x 8' management shed that will allow us to cycle the sheep through it with
a series of gates. The gates will allow us to lead the sheep into the shed, close
the gate behind them, compress them into a 4' x 8' area, select one Soay at a
time for shots, hoof trims and wool harvesting, and then release the Soay through
another gate back to the paddock. The ewes will be fed treats in this shed on
a regular basis, and be permitted access to it at all times so they will be used
to entering and exiting through the sets of gates - making it easier to get them
in there for their shots. When we have finished building it we will have detailed
drawings and material lists for this shed available.
Shelters
& Lambing Sheds
A place for the Soay to get in out of the wind, rain, hail, snow and sun does
not have to be elaborate.
If
you do not have trees in or near your pastures that provide shade for your Soay
during the heat of the day it would be good to provide some type of covering for
them. Soay do get hot and having a place for them out of the sun is essential.
One
of our favorite "recycle, reclaim, repurpose" items is a shelter made
from a blue fiberglass boat canopy that Joe attached sturdy legs to. See pictures
at top left. During the summer, heat is not an issue in this pasture as it is
heavily wooded, but the rams use this shelter during winter storms, piling in
out of the wind and rain. And as recycled materials go this is a fairly attractive
solution to provide a shelter.
We
also build sheds 4 foot high, 4 feet deep, and 8 feet long out of plywood, OSB,
or pallets. During most of the year one of these sheds will be shared by 4 - 5
ewes or rams. During lambing season a birthing ewe wants a shed to herself for
the birth, cleaning, and bonding period with her lamb - and then she is willing
to share the shed again. So during the lambing season we make sure we have enough
sheds for a ratio of 2 ewes to each shed and this has worked out well.
The
sheds built from plywood or OSB are simply one full sheet of plywood for the the
top, a full sheet for the back, and a sheet cut in half - each half used for an
end panel. The structure is screwed together with 2 x 4's. When we need to move
it, we unscrew it, move the pieces, and then re-assemble. Joe puts 2 x 4 "handles"
on the ends so if we are only moving it a few feet we pick it up assembled by
the handles. See image at left.
We
have several sheds built from pallets - which are movable but take a lot more
time to take down and put up, so we only put them where we think we will want
them to stay permanently. Pallet sheds are built with 7 pallets of roughly the
same size. One pallet for each end, two at the back, one in the center to divide
the space into two smaller cubicles and provide support for the top, and two for
the top. We line all the pallets up and screw them together. Once this is done
we cover the pallets with plastic tarp material. We had several of the Costco
"garage" tents that were destroyed our first winter here - a week of
50 - 90 mile per hour winds did them in. We have been using the buff colored tarp
from these tents on a lot of our projects. To fasten the tarps to the pallets
we use screws through fender washers and drill them into the pallets. If you simply
screw or nail the tarp onto the pallets the first good storm you get they will
be ripped off. Fender washers are metal washers about 1 - 2 inches wide with a
small hole in the center just big enough to put your screw through - see image
below. By screwing the tarp down with a fender washer between the screw head and
the tarp it prevents the tarps from being ripped off during wind storms - or curious
ewes. If you live in a high wind area - as we do - these pallet sheds are great
because even a 90 mile an hour wind does not budge them.
In
the pictures to the left the OSB shed was just built on St. Patrick's day and
will be painted inside and out as soon as the weather warms up a bit. The OSB
shed we built with a sharply sloping roof line to prevent water puddles on it
- OSB will break down in damp, wet conditions much faster than plywood - but it
is half the cost. We have high gloss outdoor paint to paint it with, which should
weatherproof it and make it last several years. We also made the 2 x 4 wall support
"legs" 5 inches longer than the wall panels to keep the OSB up out of
most of the dampness and to provide better air circulation within the shed.
The
pallet shed in the pictures to the left has been in use for 2 years now. Rather
than just build off the back of it we elected to put the OSB shed 3 feet away
from the back of the pallet shed and cover the area between with another sheet
of OSB. It's hard to see from the pictures but this shelter compound is built
on a grade and all the rain should run off the south west corner of the sheds.
Also,
the covered area between the pallet shed and the OSB shed is left open at both
ends. We did not box in one end of it because that would have made a long, narrow
shelter with no exit - a place for a predator to trap one of the sheep. The sheep
will use the covered area to get out of the weather even if they don't use it
for lambing.
All
of the pictures to the left can be clicked on for larger images.
As
we finish building our cabin and getting other support systems in place for the
human members of the Wind River flock we will dismantle the pallet sheds and upgrade
them to plywood - but until then they work really well and they cost about $3
a shed for the fender washers and screws!
Be
creative! Recycle, reclaim, repurpose!
|
