# Sheep Barn Layout



## Schmidy (Apr 30, 2017)

Hello everybody! My name is Erich, I'm new to the forum and relatively new to sheep farming. Even though being new to sheep farming, I definitely love sheep and I know that they would be the main type of livestock I would want to raise. I have helped raise cows, chickens, sheep, and a touch of pigs so I'm not totally new to livestock in general.

I was hoping someone could show me a drawing of a layout or a picture of a layout of a sheep barn. I live in the northern part of the Midwest, and I know sheep don't "need" enclosed housing per-say, but I just wouldn't have the heart to keep my animals outside when there are feet of snow outside. I understand that proper ventilation and a few other things like flooring type need to be taken into consideration, but for now I would just love some layout ideas.

I've searched online and gone to all of the sites that have layout options like Iowa State University, North Dakota State University, etc. and they all seem to have the same generic system. I've searched forum after forum and can't really find anything either.

This would layout would be for around a couple hundred head of sheep. A few things I wouldn't mind to have would be a feeder ally, inside system for working and sorting, obviously separate pens for different groups of lambs, ewes, rams, etc. Large enough pens to easily clean and maneuver through with a skid loader. A setup for lambing that doesn't have to be taken down. This barn space wouldn't be a problem, the dimensions could be anything; anywhere from 100'x1000' whatever works with layout. I hope to see everyone's designs! I bunch of heads putting ideas together are better than one!


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## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

Schmidy said:


> A setup for lambing that doesn't have to be taken down.


I use square frames covered with plywood.
Attach them with hinges to walls in the corner and 2 make a 4 X 4 pen 4 feet tall that can be folded flat when not in use. If you need more just continue attaching them along the wall with each two additional panels creating a new pen.


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## Rectifier (Jun 12, 2011)

First off put your location in your profile so everyone knows your climate.

So you are somewhere cold with piles of snow (like me). Make sure your barn, while well ventilated, can be sealed up tight in case of a storm. Cold winds are the #1 lamb killer. We have big high doors and these are a nightmare when the cold winds blow, so we are putting in man doors for both men and sheep to use.

My barn is entirely modular. My lambing setup, while it has to be put up and taken down is fast and easy to do with a pile of identical 5'x3' panels. I built mine out of pine slabs, cheap, fast to build and effective, and it's pinned together with 1/2" rebar.

I use a modified bugle setup for handling so if you look up "bugle yards" you will find info on that. The bugle runs down one side of the barn wide, tightens up around the end and comes back on the other side as a handling race.

The reason my lambing setup comes in and out is because it's far easier for the corral cleaners to work with it out as well as giving me much more room for sorting/shearing etc when I need it. This lets me get by with a smaller building, mine is 40x60 and came with my farm, so it is what it is. The cleaners charge $300/hr but if the barn is totally empty, they can have it done in 1 hour. The panels are also useful for portable penning and sorting.


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## crittermomma (Sep 26, 2013)

I have one large area that is covered, but still outside - my girls lamb in the cold and snow - and so far, we have had no issues. I had some give birth 2 years ago when the temps were 6 below zero - no issues except some slightly frozen ears. I figure God gave them the ability to lamb outside - humans are the ones trying to bring them indoors. Good luck!


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

Located in central PA:
Our layout is always kept simple and fluid. You will feel your way through it. Don't build anything to permanent at first. We use good wood screws and screw guns to build, so when we want to change we can unscrew everything and re-do. We use lambing jugs very sparingly mostly for girls having birthing problems. So these are just cattle panels zip tied together when in the barn and we use some calf hutches in the field when lambing on pasture. But we only put ewes in a jug if something requires it. We use welded wire hog and cattle panels through out with this kind of construction.
What we have now for lambing indoors in the winter is a barn that is 40 x 60 with a row of jugs on the one (40') end and a freeze proof water in the middle. The jugs all get water using a 6" PVC pipe that runs the length of the wall with access holes in each jug. This has a submersible heat tape in it. You fill the water from one end and all jugs have water. 
We have the barn set up to run up to 50 ewes at a time. The barn is a 3 sided barn with the south open, we screw on panels of plywood as needed in the winter to break the wind, but always lots of ventilation.
We feed outside in a "fence line" feeder and we have a round bale feeder in the outside area. The outside exercise/feed lot is approximately 80' x 100'. Most times the ewe will lamb inside the barn, but not always. It is her choice.
We keep a couple gates, 10' and 12' in the barn leaning against a wall so that at any time if we need to separate any animal it can be done quickly and easily. Very little is permanently built in. We can change, add or modify on the fly. Yet handling is easy. The most permanent thing we built is the Fence Line feeder. I almost built it on the building but did not like the idea as well as putting it in the exercise lot. Plus I needed more linear feet of trough than the barn allowed easily.
Another point that has worked nicely. We have a loft over 1/2 of this barn. We can store several hundred bales of straw and hay. Makes it easy putting bedding down. Just toss down a few bales of straw then spread with pitch fork. If you are feeding out small squares of hay, put the hay feeder where you can drop the bales right in from the loft.

Fence line feeding is so much better than going into the pen. Next, I want to make a way to feed round bales from the fence line.

I know that is not sheep, but it is made the same with a lower 'throat' to ground height.













These round bale feeders are made for sheep.

We use something like this also.








Next Barn
When the next group of ewes is due to lamb, we move the first group from the lambing barn to the weaning/fattening barn. It is right next door. This is a 30 x 60 'Run-In' livestock barn with the south side open and an outside exercise lot. There are 2 freeze proof waters. 1/2 the barn is accessible only to the lambs and creep feeder is put in. The ewes fed, hay only at this point, it is reduced over time (lower quality hay and then straw) then the lambs are run to their side and penned away from the ewes. Fence line contact is accessible. After about a week the ewes are moved away leaving the lambs behind to be fattened. The divider can be taken out to give the lambs more room. We find little stress and little balling. And it works with our systems flow.

The fronts of both barns are closed in with metal farm gates with cattle panel zip tied on. Or 2 x 6's with cattle panel nailed on. Some hung on the posts, some just tied together. But very little effort to open, rearrange or take down to load out animals or bring in skid steer to take out manure.

I personally do not like "feed alleys" barn space is too expensive. If you are feeding correctly it should only take a few minutes. Feed outside and run a few more sheep in the same barn. That is my opinion.

Keep it simple, especially at first. Make sure it is dynamic. Lowes sells hardened wood lag screws that use star bit's for driving them. These can be reused many times without stripping. We live by them and Dewalt screw guns.

The system I described is set up to run 50 ewes through per lambing in a flock that looks to get 1.75 lambs per ewe per lambing. We currently are running 3 groups of 30 + ewes on a system kind of like the Cornell Star system but with our own twist. So we lamb a several times a year. Thus allowing the barns to service more animals. I believe this setup will work for us to run up to 200 ewes. We expect to have 200 ewes by the end of 2017.
I will get more pictures of the barns.


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

Here is a picture in our lambing barn from up in the loft. We had barley straw for bedding and bales of forage oat hay. You can see the freeze proof waterer and the hay feeders. Something I forgot to mention. We like to put treated 2 x 6 Toung and Groove up from floor level to about 3 or 4 feet. This makes it easy for cleaning barns. Then we put plywood above that to keep crap out. You can just barely see that in the upper right corner of the picture.


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

Here are some more photos from the lambing barn:













You see why I like feeding outside. How much barn space do you want to give up. We find it easy with our four wheeler and buckets of feed. Yes there are a few days of crappy weather to deal with but that is really not that often and feeding only takes a few minutes. The second photo is of the jugs in the barn with the water trough.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

My barns were 16'x36' with a 36' leanto. Hay in the middle, little squares. As the hay was used out the front 4'x6' lambing jugs were set up, wood panels with metal loops on the end, 3/4" grey PVC water pipe used as "pins" through the loops. Hay/grain/protein blocks fed in a bunk feeder between the hay barn and leanto. Sheep were on pasture until lambing time, then put in lot/pasture. Lamb out ans taken back to pasture at 3 days unless weak or some problem. We wanted away from "the barn as soon as possible. I have also lambed in 8'x12' leanto, 2 sheds for 50 ewes, with 2 lambing jugs in 1 end, if weather was decent most lambs never spent a night in the lambing shed. I kept to flocks of 50, each lambing paddock had an oak/fir patch for some shelter. Lambing was usually over by snow time....James


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## WadeFisher (Sep 26, 2013)

This is the best you tube video.
Mike Caskey from Pipestone Sheep.




Talks all about buildings and feeding sysems.
Little more geared to commercial farming not homesteading. But lots of good info.


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## Schmidy (Apr 30, 2017)

Hello again everybody!

Sorry for the slow reply, but work has gotten pretty busy here in the spring. I bet everybody has gone through that. Rectifier I tried to put my location on hopefully it's on there. I live in southeastern South Dakota. Crittermomma lambing outdoors scares me a little, living in southern South Dakota probably isn't as bad as other places but with my ewes being sheared and winter being as cold as -20 F I just don't think my lambs let along the ewes would be happy. Wadefisher I really appreciate all of the advice. I really thought that permanent as long as the setup was good that it would be the way to go. That is kind of why I reached out here because I figured someone had to have a solid layout that they love, that works great. I also appreciate all of the photos, they really help visualize things and give me some ideas. I have seen the video by Mike Caskey before and actually have taken a few classes at the community college he teaches at in Minnesota; and expect to take a few more coming up in the fall.

I guess I just really thought that in my head that when a certain layout was found it would be the best way to go about things, if a person got to build whatever they wanted to build the dream way they wanted too. If I could build things my way, it would still probably only be myself working the sheep, so I was trying to think of a system that would be conducive to that when moving certain groups of sheep out to clean pens with a skid loader, or when it came time to sort an easy and sufficent system. That is also why I thought permanent was better, because even though there would be some wasted space at times, there would also be less hassle and less time involved in moving things and getting things set up.

I really appreciated everyone's input so far; and anymore input would be great! Thanks again Everybody!


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