I've been waffling around with winter bedding strategies for my sheep stall for a couple of years now. I've used a deep bedding system, but without tractor access, mucking out in spring is a soul destroying project. All that long straw locks together and has to be broken up in chunks with a mattock before a fork will lift it out.
I seem to have hit on a pretty good tactic. I've discovered I can mulch the old hay I use for bedding with my 18 horse Sears riding mower. I line up the tractor with the stall door and semi-fluff a couple of flakes of hay behind the mower in a swath as wide as the rear tires. Then I back over it with the blades engaged. Wallah. Nice chopped hay gets shot up in a pile against the far wall. It took me about 15 minutes to mulch a 65 lb bale of hay today. It would have taken less time, but I had to figure out that if the rear tires don't roll over the hay to hold it down, the machine will just push it backward. Can't drive forward over it, either. Then it's just a matter of raking it out. The sheep pull enough of their hay out of the rack to keep adding to the bedding, but it's the compacted stuff on the bottom that is impossible to muck out. The stuff they add to the top layer stays nice and dry. I figure they'll be good for at least a couple weeks on a stall stripping, and I won't have the backbreaking work of breaking up the bedding pack in spring. Hubby wrapped the barn's water heater in an insulation blanket for me and adjusted the temp so that the water comes out deliciously tepid. Jeez, I stuck my hand in 40 degree water to scrub the water buckets and almost suffered pain! No wonder horses are so prone to water-intake-related colic in winter! So all the outside water systems got disconnected today and the sheepies and horses will all get a shot at some nice warm water twice a day. Hope everyone's staying warm and dry. We are toppling rainfall records here in W. Oregon. Regards, Barb Lee Blacklocust Farm American Blackbelly Sheep http://www.blacklocustfarm.net _______________________________________________ This message is from the blackbelly mailing list Visit the list's homepage at %http://www.blackbellysheep.info
