Straw bedded or slatted shed

farawaygrass

tractorporn wrote: »

We have a solid floored shed with walk through feeders for the sheep here. Have gone away from straw though as we found that it was wrapping around the ewes feet. Tried sawdust last year and have stayed with it again this year, it made a great dry, warm bed for the sheep. We have it breaking down in a pit for this year as it takes a lot longer to break down than straw.

I remember when I was young an old neighbor using sawdust, not sure why he stopped. But they seemed to stay very clean

sheepfarmer92

farawaygrass wrote: »

Impressive. Very easy going on straw so

Thanks, yea but theyre gettin haylage so its keepin evetything very dry, i do spread lime on the floor of each shed most weeks when sheep are being footbathed and it helps keep footrot at bay touchwood

stantheman1979

serfspup wrote: »

yes big squares, not using bark pens were probably due bedding
drive in with bale into centre pen laeve half at the rear of the shed half in the front
fork accross to the outside pen.

pens are 10ft along the wall 12 ft in centre
the narrower pens actually use more straw.
individual pens set up as required
(have a straw bale set on top for convienience)

not very clear in the photos but there is a race running along the back of the shed behing the small pens

How do you get silage in?? For bedding you drive into the centre pen of sheep and fork it over the gates to the next pens?? How do you get ewes/lambs out of those lambing pens bring them through the rest of the sheep? You just make the pens when required could you not set up a few in another shed it would save you time setting them up all the time

serfspup

for straw sheep put out in the footbath drive in half big square in the back of the shed half in the front,fork half across the feed passage.

doesn't take long to set up pens and having the pens at the back of the shed is where most of the ewes lamb so they can be slipped into the individual pen in seconds.

there is a door at the rear of the shed to let ewes and lambs out without having to go through the rest of the ewes.

silage is fed by diet feeder:D
diet feeder 2.JPG

stantheman1979

Sure we all have our ways of doing things. It's what works best for us. Best of luck hope lambing goes well for you.

farawaygrass

I asked someone during the week who travels to a lot of farms and he said them green plastic sheep slats are a great job. It put me thinking again I suppose. If you were house ewes from start to mid December and keeping them in for lambing until start of march, would there be an awful height of straw bed under them?

Username John

farawaygrass wrote: »

I asked someone during the week who travels to a lot of farms and he said them green plastic sheep slats are a great job. It put me thinking again I suppose. If you were house ewes from start to mid December and keeping them in for lambing until start of march, would there be an awful height of straw bed under them?

Surely location and so availability of straw will determine the slats vs straw debate?

If you can get straw for a reasonable price, then I think the benefits for the ewe and lamb, plus the huge benefit of dung to the land afterwards outweigh the benefits of slats?
Plus you have a shed that's more adaptable...

https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/crops/cereal-crops/spring-cereals/fertiliser/

Table on page above shows the P and K take off in a crop of barley straw.
If you assume 3 ton / acre barley, and 9 round bales / acre
That makes the straw have a P of 1.2 and a K of 20.1 per acre or - a P and K of 0.13 and 2.3 per bale...
Plus there is the benefit after this if the organic matter...

But - I say all this with straw being reasonably easily gotten around here...

Green farmer

Slightly off topic, but any way to spread last years manure without a muck spreader ? Land leveller any good ?

Username John

Green farmer wrote: »

Slightly off topic, but any way to spread last years manure without a muck spreader ? Land leveller any good ?

You mean dung that was spread last winter but still on the ground?

Chain harrow is what lads use I would think?

If you don't have one, and you have lots of dung still on the ground, I'd be looking at the closest big hawthorn bush
But I'm mane out too

Green farmer

Ive last years manure pile still in the shed and was going to spread it somehow, but not enough there to warrant getting a contractor in.

sea12

Green farmer wrote: »

Ive last years manure pile still in the shed and was going to spread it somehow, but not enough there to warrant getting a contractor in.

Yea I bought an old jf dung spreader for that reason. Never could justify bringing in a contractor but it was gathering up all the same. Find it very handy and get to spread the fields you want when you want. It's amazing the difference dung makes to land

Username John

Green farmer wrote: »

Ive last years manure pile still in the shed and was going to spread it somehow, but not enough there to warrant getting a contractor in.

I see evenings with the transport box and a pike in your future

Username John

sea12 wrote: »

Yea I bought an old jf dung spreader for that reason. Never could justify bringing in a contractor but it was gathering up all the same. Find it very handy and get to spread the fields you want when you want. It's amazing the difference dung makes to land

Actually, we have one of those at home in the shed. Hasn't been moved in over 20 years I'd say... chains broke, and was backed in and that was that...

Was handy all right to be fair...

Too heavy to use around here tho, although dung would do the ground the world of good, but just too high for the job...

Green farmer

Username John wrote: »

I see evenings with the transport box and a pike in your future

I'm too old for pike ,Thinking transport box and land leveller

Username John

Green farmer wrote: »

I'm too old for pike ,Thinking transport box and land leveller

You are not... don't put yourself down Green... you can do it

I would have thought though that you'd have a nice bit of dung for the contractor to spread?

If I were you, I'd try to get as much straw as I could, and make as much dung as you could. Keep a savage bed under the ewes at all times... it'll help those fields you were debating reseeding no end...

farawaygrass

Username John wrote: »

Surely location and so availability of straw will determine the slats vs straw debate?

If you can get straw for a reasonable price, then I think the benefits for the ewe and lamb, plus the huge benefit of dung to the land afterwards outweigh the benefits of slats?
Plus you have a shed that's more adaptable...

https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/crops/cereal-crops/spring-cereals/fertiliser/

Table on page above shows the P and K take off in a crop of barley straw.
If you assume 3 ton / acre barley, and 9 round bales / acre
That makes the straw have a P of 1.2 and a K of 20.1 per acre or - a P and K of 0.13 and 2.3 per bale...
Plus there is the benefit after this if the organic matter...

But - I say all this with straw being reasonably easily gotten around here...

Thanks for that. I'm in the west so paid 17e a bale of good barley straw last sept from tipp so I guess, especially this year, it was good value it seems to be always in and around that anyhow, as I said before we are buying off the same man for years. It just to clarify my question again I suppose, would you have to cart out the shed during the winter with the bed getting too high? And Is a 3 month winter ok on straw?

Username John

farawaygrass wrote: »

Thanks for that. I'm in the west so paid 17e a bale of good barley straw last sept from tipp so I guess, especially this year, it was good value it seems to be always in and around that anyhow, as I said before we are buying off the same man for years. It just to clarify my question again I suppose, would you have to cart out the shed during the winter with the bed getting too high? And Is a 3 month winter ok on straw?

We would only have had ewes in here for 6 weeks or so...

But I think the answer to both your questions is 'not an issue as long as you have enough straw'

The bed getting too high - that would depend on your facilities really...
And 3 months on straw - I don't see why not, as long as you had enough straw...

rangler1

Username John wrote: »

We would only have had ewes in here for 6 weeks or so...

But I think the answer to both your questions is 'not an issue as long as you have enough straw'

The bed getting too high - that would depend on your facilities really...
And 3 months on straw - I don't see why not, as long as you had enough straw...

I would try to clean the sheds out before lambing......doesn't always happen though

Green farmer

Username John wrote: »

You are not... don't put yourself down Green... you can do it


If I were you, I'd try to get as much straw as I could, and make as much dung as you could. Keep a savage bed under the ewes at all times... it'll help those fields you were debating reseeding no end...

I'm watching the field with bathed breath at the moment, seeing what last weeks lime spreading will unlock.

rangler1

Green farmer wrote: »

I'm watching the field with bathed breath at the moment, seeing what last weeks lime spreading will unlock.

better stop 'bateing' your breath.....it'll be at least three mths.
I was amused at teagasc using liebigs barrel to demonstrate fertility.
The water only rises as high as the lowest board, ie if there's inadequate potash to grow enough grass putting on lime won't make any difference

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Minimum-Tonne.svg

Teagasc had all the different nutrients, trace elements written on each of the boards and one board was short. the shortest board defined the amount of water held or in our case the amountb of grass grown

Green farmer

The barrel is a good Description. What confused me with the soil test results was the index 1's for p & k's. Was reading somewhere that sheep manure higher then cattle and pig for the k's, so thought that migh have helped. Suppose you were right what you said before that every kg produced stripped off a little bit of everything. Still hoping to get abit of a bounce as some stuff had to be locked up. It's out a week now so might go with some 18 6 12 today I've left since last year.

farawaygrass

rangler1 wrote: »

better stop 'bateing' your breath.....it'll be at least three mths.
I was amused at teagasc using liebigs barrel to demonstrate fertility.
The water only rises as high as the lowest board, ie if there's inadequate potash to grow enough grass putting on lime won't make any difference

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Minimum-Tonne.svg

Teagasc had all the different nutrients, trace elements written on each of the boards and one board was short. the shortest board defined the amount of water held or in our case the amountb of grass grown

Why then do people go with urea now on low index fields and wait till later for compounds? Surely if you put out a bag and a half of 18-6-12 now it would be way more benifical than urea. Won't the low p and k inhibit the driving power of the urea?

Username John

farawaygrass wrote: »

Why then do people go with urea now on low index fields and wait till later for compounds? Surely if you put out a bag and a half of 18-6-12 now it would be way more benifical than urea. Won't the low p and k inhibit the driving power of the urea?

But then in another thread, lads were saying that Teagasc don't recommend going out with compound til march...

I went with a mix of 18-6-12 and urea on fields 4 weeks ago...

I think the fields with the urea did better, even though some of them wouldn't have great indexes and one has very low pH... see pic I posted in blood sampling thread... so the grass took up more N it yes, I would imagine it wouldn't be as efficient take up as if the indexes were in order...

rangler1

farawaygrass wrote: »

Why then do people go with urea now on low index fields and wait till later for compounds? Surely if you put out a bag and a half of 18-6-12 now it would be way more benifical than urea. Won't the low p and k inhibit the driving power of the urea?

always use 18 6 12 here against all the advice, but I don't put out much manure so if it didn't get it in the first application it mightn't get any P and K.

DonAndy1

Lads, looking for some advice
I have a 3 bay single slatted shed open at front
I want to build a shed a mirror image to close it all in and am tight for space and budget, I've around 10k to spend to complete job.
Was thinking of straw bedded
What size pens would be ideal for say 6 suckers/ 8 Weanlings etc
Centre passage what size would ye leave it, 14" enough
Am tight on space and thought a 14"/16" front to back pen would be big enough per pen so would have the shed 47"x16"x14"
What's yer thoughts or advice
I have a digger and was toying with slats, but been told straw is better job

Green farmer

Digging up this old thread. With the cost and quality of straw available this year, anyone revisiting the idea of putting in slats ?