Very sad day on the farm

Ridgetop

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Keep the best ram - learn about where the meat is carried and use that to select your breeding ram. Pretty or cute is not an option for you wen building a meat herd. You can use the ram for 2 years even on daughters if necessary to produce meat. So you have a 2-3 years before having to spend anything on a quality ram. Later, you can invest in that if it is what you want.

I like your new ewes they look really good, healthy and carrying good weight. Also having docile and more tame ewes will be helpful when having t catch them to doctor them. Teach them now to follow a bucket of grain and you will be ahead of the game!

So excited for you with your new flock!
 

Fluffy_Flock

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Wow so I just can't catch a break! Wild storm blew through and took out our sheep shed, quail coop and chicken coop. Luckily most of the animal survived. Sheep came out unhurt.
20200409_163557.jpg


This is all that's left of that structure.

Finally found the last of our animals and in all the chaos only lost 1 chicken where the coop landed on the bird.

Off to find plans for windproof shelters now... 😭 😭 😭
 

Baymule

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Congrats on your new flock! They are some lovely girls. I am very happy for you that you now have tame sheep. My first 4 came off a 300 acre ranch, they were wild, but calmed down and made pets. LOL

That sucks about the shelter. Looks like it was made from pallets? What about using cow panels to make a hoop shelter? You can drive T-posts and wire then to the T-posts and cover with a tarp. Or you can get more detailed, here's a link to a hoop coop I built.

 

Fluffy_Flock

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That was our original idea to make it of cattle panel but we get 30-40mph winds on the regular so I don't think it would be strong enough. This shed was made with about 15 oversized pallets plus 2x4s. It was VERY heavy. Winds we have had here were enough to flip a shed that was anchored 2ft in the ground with 4 anchor screws. I think I'm going to need to concrete something in the ground.

These winds were 60-80mph straight line winds.

Neighbors down the road brought back my quail roof though so there's that.... I feel extremely lucky we only lost one chicken. Went to check the sheep fence and it looks like the shed rolled right over the fence and popped back up from the tension of the barbed wire. You can see where the t posts were laid down. I'm shocked the wires didn't snap!
 

Fluffy_Flock

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I'm thinking cinder block walls with earth banked around them. Tie the roof on good!

The wind is always blowing here, but we have a lot of trees that blocks it. On open areas, the wind never stops.
Unfortunately I think you might be right! That's a major construction project right there. Ugh we have to do something quickly because the weather is going to be crap all weekend.
 

Mike CHS

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Cattle panel hoop houses are sturdier than you might think. We have some major winds where we live and ours have stood for several years (anchored with T-posts and pallets for wind break).
 

Ridgetop

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:ep I am glad you didn't lose your new sheep flock! One chicken lost is getting off light with that sort of wind.

Several years ago winds like that took 8 12 x 24 pipe corral stalls attached together with corrugated metal shelters and metal barrel feeders, and flipped them upside down on our hillside. Luckily, those winds had kept us awake most of the night and we had turned our horses out to avoid them spooking and trying to escape maybe breaking a leg, or getting hit with flying debris. Since then we have not out up corral shelters on the field. We used the shelters to build a tipi sheep shelter on the field and it has withstood the winds. However, our second tipi shelter we put up for the rams in the front field is sheltered by being in a hollow surrounded by power pole retaining walls, and backing up to one of the power pole walls. That shelter which we thought was safe was blown down flat by the wind. Luckily the sheep didn't like going in it much, preferring the old trampoline to shelter under. Strong winds are a problem when you live on a flat prairie, or on an exposed ridge top.

We also want to put up more field shelters for our sheep but need to make sure they don't blow way. We have a major problem with wind at our place. In the past 30 years we have lost the roof on our house twice, the barn roof and another shed roof once, as well as losing our lower open 12 x 12 goat shelter and had a tree come down on us costing us more roof repairs and our HVAC. we were able to repair and replace all these, but the insurance company was not happy and hit us hard with depreciation value. We have 2 Connex boxes on the field now (the shipping containers that are used to ship freight on the big semis. Currently we have the space between them gated off and have stored our horse corral panels and other livestock equipment in the space. We want to roof over the space between the 2 20' boxes to make a covered hay storage area. Or it could also become sheep shelter since DH wants to store the hay inside one of the Connex boxes instead. Not sure what we will do but don't want to spend a lot on a permanent structure since are we planning to move in another couple years. with us when we move to our new place whenever we are able to move.

If the hoop houses are sturdy enough, maybe putting one up beside the Connex box would protect it from the wind. Replacing the tarps would be a hassle, but not too expensive compared to a roof.

Bay's advice about putting up cinderblock walls with earth banks is also a plan. What is you stacked bags of cement on the outside of the stacked cinder blocks instead of earth? Without foundation or mortar? Like when Bay puts them under fences in hollows and runoff channels? When it rains they would be like rocks - but would they blow over too?
 
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