[Connor]

I am going to build a lambing shed this year but was wondering will i need planing permission? it be 25ft by 20ft by 10ft will have some brick for the walls then a wooden frame for tine cladding to go on it! any other ideas?

[Hillview Farm]

Yes you will if your doing brick work, have you actually thought about ventilation ? Personally I think your asking for trouble, why not lamb outside and have some shelter for them? They are sheep after all and they coped fine for thousands of years.

[Connor]

i am going to put fence boards along two sides of the shed and there is a 10ft gate on one side plus the shed will be for the shed and my goat and need something to store straw in aswell

[Hillview Farm]

When I talk about ventilation I don't just mean can air get in, I also mean can it  get out? As the air warms it rises and if there is no where for it to get out  of the roof the animals will breath it in and that's how phenumonia gets a hold! Having experienced his in calves and watched the affects on the animal at the time and then further along when it's growing you can really see how awful it is. Like I said I wouldn't risk it, builders get it wrong sometimes and they are ment to be the professionals. But fair enough for straw storage. Good luck

[Connor]

If the hot air rises how am I meant to get rid of it? If I put holes or small gaps in the roof rain will get through?

[lachlanandmarcus]

We've done a field shelter to double as a lambing shed, and the design we got has foot long slats at the top of the back wall which faces into the wind. This not only stops (or tries to) it taking off in our Cairngorm gales but also means it has very good air circulation. It might be worth considering something similar?


We got ours made but you could DIY something similar, this is the one we had, second photo down shows a close up of the slats. It's amazing that hardly any rain etc comes in, we used upgraded dimensions of framing so it's quite deep, bit like a medieval house window!

Can't get the link to work but if you google saltire stables and then look at the picture gallery menu option then  for field shelters the first few pics are of this design (altho we have boarding to ceiling on the walls too)

[Hillview Farm]

If the hot air rises how am I meant to get rid of it? If I put holes or small gaps in the roof rain will get through?

That's why you get professionals in to do it. You need to look at some buildings and their roof design.

 We have slits in the roof then a mini roof over the top its called a capped roof

[Rosemary]

Are you planning to house the sheep all the time at lambing or are you just putting up mothering pens to put ewes with their new lambs in to bond?

You need at least 1.5m2 per ewe and mothering pens need to be about 2.3m2 for a ewe with twins (I use a 4ft and a 6ft hurdle). Trough space should be at least 50cm per ewe. How many individual pens you need depends on how many ewes you have lambing, how many multiples you have,  what the pattern is and the weather.

We had 13 to the tup (scanner comes this month and I expect a couple of barren), so I'll have three individual pens, which should be enough.

We used breeze block to 4ft then Yorkshire boarded above to the roof, which keeps out most of the rain but lets the wind through. Ventilation IS really important - sheep don't need to be warm but they do need to be dry.

[Rosemary]

Oops, your question was about planning permission.

This is the advice I got from a planning office a few years ago.

"Rosemary, the tests of whether PP is required in this case are basically:
Is the building for an agri purpose on an agri unit  of more than 0.4Ha?
Would the building plus any others erected in the last 2 years exceed 265sqm?
Would any part of the building be within 25m of a metalled portion of a classified road?
Would the height of the building exceed 12m?

If the answer is NO to all of these questions, then no PP is required.  Hope that helps. "

This was in Scotland so England / Wales may be different.

[Connor]

Have you any photos of the shed photos would help me to plan it out better and what materials to use?

[Rosemary]

You can kind of see it here http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/diary/bringing-the-sheep-in/

[Connor]

thats the sorta thing i want just something that will lamb them in and keep my goat and straw in but i want to have it looking good will something like this cost a lot of money?

[Rosemary]

Our barn was there when we moved here. It's built with telegraph poles as the uprights with a good wriggly tin roof - our PV aray is on the south facing roof and it was reinforced before the panels were put on. It's in four sections, each 4.5m x 7m, so 18m x 7m in total. One and a half of the middle two quarters are breeze bocked to the top - that was done before we moved here.

We converted the first 1/4 a couple of years ago - walls and concrete floor, then boarded it the next year. The other three 1/4 have sand / stone floors. We boarded the other end this year to stop the wind whistling through the wood store.

I'll try and get some pic today. I don't know how much it cost because we didn't build it from scratch and bits have been done as we can afford it.

Have you thought about a polytunnel?

[Connor]

I have a polytunnel and keep a few chicks in it but wouldnt put sheep in it I need the sheep shed for my cafves when I get them aswell

[verdifish]

Connor was it a large lottery win ?