Shelter for sheep By Professor John Scott. From extracts published in “Transactions of the Highland Agricultural Society of Scotland.” 1894-97
“It is surely one of the greatest negligences of British husbandry that our flocks are not more carefully protected in winter. The sheep is now the only domestic animal which, at the most inclement season of the year, is left on the hills and in the fields, exposed to all the vicissitudes of our cold and damp climate. To what a pitiful condition has many a fine flock been reduced by this neglect; and how great the mortality amongst them at times when they have been exposed to the double severities of a hard winter and a late spring.
It might also be affirmed that mutton is not only raised at less cost, but sells at a relatively higher price per pound than beef; and sheep yield wool in addition to mutton. These ought to be strong inducements to give sheep some of that shelter which is so readily afforded to cattle. Personal interests and the laws of humanity alike call for every effort to promote the comfort and value of an animal which both feeds and clothes mankind, and from which so much of the rental of the country is derived. But the hardest treatment seems to be considered good enough for sheep.
Notwithstanding that our flocks are now of a far better and more valuable kind, they are condemned to weather every storm of winter just as the sheep of a very inferior kind had to do in the primitive condition of agriculture, before the invention of hay, or the introduction of turnips and other winter foods.
The hardy nature of the black faces is proverbial, but there is a limit to even their endurance; and when snowstorms occur in March and April, as often happens, and ewes heavy in lamb have to rustle for it, and sometimes blocked in by snow for days or even weeks, the wonder is that more of them do not die of exposure and starvation, that the condition of the survivors is not worse, and that the number of ewes without lambs the following summer is not greater.
Sheep on arable farms usually get an ample provision of winter food made for them, but they are as much in need of shelter from wintry blasts as hill sheep are. Anything more pitiable than a flock of sheep hudled up against the flakes in a pelting rain or drifting snow, or with the wool draggled to their backs almost in the mud of a wet turnip field, cannot be met with on the hills even at mid-winter. Something in the way of temporary shelter is always possible, and 'a sma' bush is better than nae beild.'
All young lambs are the better for being kept a night or two in the shed or yard pens, before they are sent out to the fields with their dams. A single night in the pens is often the means of setting young lambs fairly on their legs. But when they are turned out to the field they should also be able to find plenty of shelter from the cold winds and during snowstorms and wet weather.
If a thatched hurdle is set up with its back to the wind, then two more transversely to and against the first at opposite ends of it, and another thatched hurdle or two be laid horizontally on the top of the others and fastened there, this will give covered shelter to a dozen or more lambs, with little labour and at a very nominal expense. A number of these shelters should be erected all over the field if it is pasture; and if it is a turnip-fold the shelters are easily moved forward along with the sheep. Everyone knows that the economy of feeding is greatly improved by sheltering sheep. This is true in regard to store sheep as to fattening sheep; but it is difficult to estimate the advantage, except in the case of sheep that are being fed for the butcher. It has been found over and over again, that a fattening sheep in the open field will gain in live weight 2-lb. per week in fine weather; while in bad weather it will not gain at all, no matter how well it may be fed. The loss which may occur in the course of a single week, in a large flock, is far more than is required to provide shelter for all the sheep.”
Lamb creep
Creep feeding is a system of allowing lambs to feed away from their mothers. At around six weeks, the lambs are weaned from milk and graze grass. Grains or other suplements are fed to the lambs post weaning and the ewes are kept from the lamb's troughs by using a lamb creep, which allows the lambs to squeeze through but not the ewes. Old shepherds sometimes made squeeze gaps through the hazel hurdles which were erected around the lamb feeding troughs and some squeeze gaps can be seen in dry stone walls in the Lake district and the Cotswolds. The patented Victorian automatic lamb creep hurdle shown here is adjustable. As the lambs became older, the roller bars were adjusted allowing the lambs into the fresh grazing or trough area.
Creep feeding is a system of allowing lambs to feed away from their mothers. At around six weeks, the lambs are weaned from milk and graze grass. Grains or other suplements are fed to the lambs post weaning and the ewes are kept from the lamb's troughs by using a lamb creep, which allows the lambs to squeeze through but not the ewes. Old shepherds sometimes made squeeze gaps through the hazel hurdles which were erected around the lamb feeding troughs and some squeeze gaps can be seen in dry stone walls in the Lake district and the Cotswolds. The patented Victorian automatic lamb creep hurdle shown here is adjustable. As the lambs became older, the roller bars were adjusted allowing the lambs into the fresh grazing or trough area.
lamb creep
The Lambing Pen From the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. 1890s.
“In the question of shelter we think there has been some neglect; too much reliance has been placed on the hardiness of the sheep, while attention has been insufficiently directed to the fact that warmth is the equivalent of food, and that shelter means comfort. The position of the root crop, however, must decide where the lambing pen shall be. there is the widest difference between the system of producing house-lamb in some of the southern counties, and habitual and needless exposure to all weathers, such as the longwools are often subjected to in the north.
The site chosen for the lambing pen should be sheltered from the east winds and have a south-westerley aspect, as the wind, even from south and west, is seldom very cold or of long duration, while east wind is not only proverbially bad for man and beast, but is the most persistent of any we get in these islands.
If no fold yard or barton exists, inexpensive but serviceable shelters may be piut up, according to the materials available in the district.
As we have known many worthy men unwilling to accept what they call 'new fangled notions', we would ask them to put aside tradition and give a fair trial to new methods to meet new times. We must rear more lambs, if possible, and lose fewer ewes if we are to make sheep farming pay”.
“In the question of shelter we think there has been some neglect; too much reliance has been placed on the hardiness of the sheep, while attention has been insufficiently directed to the fact that warmth is the equivalent of food, and that shelter means comfort. The position of the root crop, however, must decide where the lambing pen shall be. there is the widest difference between the system of producing house-lamb in some of the southern counties, and habitual and needless exposure to all weathers, such as the longwools are often subjected to in the north.
The site chosen for the lambing pen should be sheltered from the east winds and have a south-westerley aspect, as the wind, even from south and west, is seldom very cold or of long duration, while east wind is not only proverbially bad for man and beast, but is the most persistent of any we get in these islands.
If no fold yard or barton exists, inexpensive but serviceable shelters may be piut up, according to the materials available in the district.
As we have known many worthy men unwilling to accept what they call 'new fangled notions', we would ask them to put aside tradition and give a fair trial to new methods to meet new times. We must rear more lambs, if possible, and lose fewer ewes if we are to make sheep farming pay”.
Sheep and lamb sheltering cloths 1890s
DUPLA Sheep and lamb sheltering cloths 1890s
Lambing on the hampshire downs
Lambing shelter Pic J. Saunders
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