Feeders 2.0

Its barely summer, but my thoughts are beginning to turn to winter.  If all goes smoothly, we’ll be feeding up to 15 sheep this winter, and we’ll need an upgrade to the hay feeders we used last winter. Bigger and better.

I’m convinced we can find a better way to feed hay to the sheep without losing so much of it to the ground where it gets trampled on; soaked with water, urine and poop; and turns in to heavy muck that converts to concrete when it dries. We’ve taken at least 15 cartloads of muck out behind the barnyard in the woods, and probably should move about 8 or 10 more before the wedding in 5 weeks (5 WEEKS?!?! OMG!!).

What did we learn last winter?

1. The taller sheep – Martha, Dolly and Calvin – like to eat from the top of the free-standing hay feeder. That is fine, but they turn their heads after getting a mouthful, chew over the barnyard, and let too much drop and get wasted.
2. Neither of the hay feeders currently in place – the free-standing “manger” and the box on the barn wall – has a tray underneath. If we could catch some of that dropping hay, it would stand a chance of being eaten up.
3. Hay in the manger got wet from snow and rain – we need a lid of some kind.

So I’ve been Googling “hay feeder plans for sheep” lately and seeing pretty much the same plans I saw last year. But the big difference is…I didn’t know what I was doing last year. I think I’ve found the one we’re going to try.

It looks pretty straightforward, though it does call for some 8 foot long 2×4’s to be beveled, and I’ll have to figure that one out. Also, based on our learning, it will need to prevent feeding from the top  – more plywood siding above the slats on each side and on the ends (the plan has the total height of the feeder being a little more than 3 feet, I think we’ll need to make it at least 3.5 feet tall). And it will need a roof of some sort (probably plywood on a hinge, slanted to help keep the snow from piling up).

I expect we will continue to use the boxes on the barn walls, too. We’ll need to figure out some way to add a tray under the box to catch hay.  There are support braces under the box, but I’m sure we can work around them. Probably take them off the wall, unscrew the bottoms, and replace them with bigger bottoms with edges to hold the fallen hay.

I figure I’ve got about 4 months to get two new feeders built and trays under the boxes. No, make that a little less than 3 months – nothing is going to get built before the wedding.

Todd