[Hugo]

I am looking for a cheap way of creating a handling system for my flock of 18 sheep. I have looked at IAE and their races seem to be expensive. I was looking at creating a home made race out of corrugated iron that I have and wood, but the cost of this as it will need replacing often due to snapping and rotting in our clay soil. I have White Faced Welsh Mountain sheep and need a proper handling system as the sheep hurdles sold by IAE you can drag easily when you have 20 of them out in a line.

Any tips or pictures would be very helpful.

Thank you for you help.

Hugo

[Rosemary]

Womble on here build a home made handling system [member=2128]Womble[/member]

[fsmnutter]

[member=27351]verdifish[/member] made us a fab race and shedding gate from corrugated tin, mesh wire and box section metal.

[Womble]

Hi Hugo,

Yes, we made a race using strainer posts and gates. The idea was that if we messed it up, we could always move bits about later. It wisnae cheap, but it was worth every penny we paid!





Overall, I'm well pleased with how it works, but here are the learning points a couple of years on:

• The stones we used were too large - too hard on hooves and for tipping delicate bums onto (sometimes mine!  ). I'd use something smaller next time. I'm hoping that will correct itself given a few more years of accumulated sheep sh1t though!
• I wish I'd built in a wee race in, with room for a footbath and maybe a turnover crate, followed by some sort of shedding system. It's now going to be quite difficult to retrofit, unless I do something in the adjacent field (on the left hand side of the sketch)
• Bear in mind that after the footbath, they need to go back onto the gravel to dry.
• Sheep want to run uphill, so build your race at the top of the slope, not the bottom.
• Having the pen at the intersection between fields is great. You really don't want to have to drive your gimmers through three fields to get them to the pen, especially as according to sod's law, one of the intervening fields will always be full of tups!
• If you're using a pen to catch and dose in rather than a race, it needs to be really small. The sheep are much calmer if they are with their friends, and crammed in tightly. That way you can just work your way in amongst them and dose them individually (I give them all temporary head splodges with a marker crayon to make sure they all get got, and only once!)

BTW, if you use proper treated strainer posts and also dip them in creosote, I don't see why they shouldn't last a good long time, regardless of the soil.

Hope that helps!

[Rosemary]

I guess the best place to put ours would be at the intersection of the four paddocks - pity it's the wettest place on the whole holding 

[Anke]

I would also make sure that you have easy access to load sheep, so can put a trailer to one of the exit gates and drive out of the field easily too....

[ckra1000]

[member=36162]Hugo[/member] I had been thinking about a sheep race for a long time.  I only run a small flock of 20 Welsh Mule ewes and lambs, but we also have a Texel ram.  After finding the ram very difficult to handle during the summer and sustaining a protracted knee injury in the process, I bought a brilliant sturdy sheep race from a farmer in Harrogate. He sells them at a very good price on the well known auction site.  Much cheaper than the IAE equivalent. I now feel much more confident in handling my flock again and think it was money well spent.  I did think about building my own but the unit I bought is so strong and easy, I don't think it would have been worth the effort and money to build my own.

[Hellybee]

We have a narrow race built out  of post n rail and I add a hurdle gathering pen on one end with a little gate and then a guillotine on the other end.  Then i add more pens depending on how many groups we need split. 

[Marches Farmer]

Our outdoor heep handling area is surfaced with flat, rounded stones about 6cm across. These work very well - are too big to get stuck in the clees, get washed off efficiently with a shower of rain and give good traction.  We have a Modulamb sheep handling system. We checked out every manufacturer's offerings at NSA Sheep one year and Modulamb visited and designed it for our space and to our budget. It fits into the lambing shed, has two pens about 12m square (ideal for catching lambs then putting them in a separate pen after worming, etc., a pen with a swing forcing gate which can be slid back on itself to catch and force the next batch, a short race with guillotine gate and anti backing panels, a turnover crate and a two-way shedding gate.  Some of the hurdles have sliding or small swing gates to ease access from one area to another.  It's saved us countless hours of handling and a very great deal of cursing over the four years we've had it.  We dismantle it in late Winter and use various bits to set up the lambing shed for mothering up pens.  We ran the sheep through it without catching or doing any tasks three or four times before we first used it for real, so they got the idea wiothout getting stressed.

[bazzais]

You cannot beat a good sheep handling pen - a permanent one you can work on and improve.

We spent our first few years constructing and reconstructing temporary hurdles in fields. And its a pita.  We now just have a straight run accross fields and lanes and right down to our permanent system, as its easyier to move sheep to the system than move the system.

I made guillotine gates - 4 bits of angle iron 6 foot in length (2 welded together to make a gully) braced at either end with another bit 1.5 foot wide.  Then made the gate out of an old bed mattress. Welded a pully on top - brill.

As Helen (partner) said - its all work in progress - but having a system that really works and it takes the morning out the afternoons work when you have stuff already setup.

One of the best investments I made - and if I were you wouldnt bother with making it mobile - cos if its mobile your having to find and shift stuff all the time - make room for something permanent.

[Big Light]

Or you could make one for very little out of scraps and pallets and a bit of hard work :0)

[ThomasR]

Big light I love the pallet handling system. How high did you make it for hebs and could you post any more photos or details as I need something that I could make myself that doesn't cost much and I also have a large supply of pallets. Do you have a small race on the side for a foot bath or dossing? Do you have a small door to let individual sheep out? What did you use other than pallets? Did you make a funnel like entrance to stop the hebs splitting as currently with my hebs I have a funnel going out 20m to stop them splitting? Yours looks very smart.

[Big Light]

Nothing as fancy as a race although you could add one its basically got 2 gates a small side one and one you could get a vehicle through its about 4ft high although the big gate was slightly lower and I watched a small heb hogget fly over it ;0)- its getting another rail. There is  some posts and rails to support it there's a separate pen at the rear to compress them in. Just a bit of bucket work to feed them in had considered funnel but a bit of work with stock getting used to getting food in paid off -no other photos sorry but almost forgot the secret ingredient - binder twine ;0)

[ThomasR]

Ok thanks will give it go this week.

[Carse Goodlifers]

......almost forgot the secret ingredient - binder twine ;0)

The entire UK rural community and rural industries would be completely knackered if it wasn't for binder twine!