[OhLaLa]

I'm about to build another sheep shelter. Would love to see yours so please put a pic up (and it might help me get this one right).

What floor do you use? Ours is directly on the ground, I have nettles growing in there on one side which I have to pull, can't sort until they are in another field (hence next shelter)...

    

[Frieslandfilly]

Hi, just tried to write and explain how OH built one last year but might take a pic it would be easier!! Anyhow we got the idea from smalller versions at our local wildlife park and used up old half round rails, will see if I can get a pic on soon.

Dawn

[kanisha]

depends on your sheep I use off the peg veal calf igloos. I can get 6/7 sheepies in there quite happily ( minus door to entomb the veal calf )


portable durable high resale value

[Frieslandfilly]

pics

[Frieslandfilly]

inside, cant quite get the hang of getting more than one photo at a time on!! We have also used same technique to build a duck house.

[OhLaLa]

Wow, thanks guys. Bit tricky to get idea of size but certainly food for thought (keep em comin').

Kanisha, thanks for sharing that, loved seeing it, unfortunately don't think it would survive our winds.

Frieslandfilly, love that one, looks sturdy and our sheepies would love it too. Clever OH!!!!
Good idea for the roof, bit worried ours (Onduline) might not make it through the first gales but have done my best - will change it for your style if our roof goes the same way as the wicked witch of the west.

And.... hay bed for them tomorrow it is then.

 

[kanisha]

Hi Oh Lala you bolt them to pallettes if you want them to stay put and don't mind the extra weight. Mine live on the top of an exposed hill 10 km from the north brittany coast.

[lachlanandmarcus]

Our whole stable block has onduline roof and it has survived 100mph winds straight off Cairngorms and 2 ft of snow for 3 months sitting on it. And thats built (cos of slope) on a raised foundation so very exposed.
Key thing is no overhang, they look pretty but are deadly for catching the wind.
TBH at least if it does blow off, you might survive being hit by it (or might not, but most other materials would kill someone outright).

The shelter must at minimum on exposed site be staked into the ground with angle irons hammered into ground and shelter lashed to it. Irons at 45 degrees to the ark wall and entering the ground just by the ark wall.

TBH the best and cheapest is the pallets even with no roof in terms of amount of shelter and from every wind direction if you make them into a noughts and crosses, you need 12 pallets from memory, I will get a piccy of ours tomorrow. You can also hang troughs on them and attach hurdles to give sheep pens more rigidity and strength (useful with Shetlands like mine!)

[andywalt]

having to do this to get you back at the top, the worlds gone crazy

[morri2]

Hi!  Our shelter has an onduline roof too, absolutely brilliant stuff for field shelters. It costs around £12 per sheet inc. vat.   It started off as one of those section wooden field shelters you can buy online, but it wasn't big enough so OH replicated the way it was constructed and extended it...twice now.. started outs as 14' wide its now 28'!!  I tried to post you a pic of the outside and the inside to show you how we built it (which is just out of the usual type of timber used to build decent garden sheds, only with a good basic structure and cross bracing), but for some reason the site will not allow me to do it - even when I tried to post only one pic I was informed it was too large a file to go through!!! Anyone any advice on this?

[Fleecewife]

This is one of our shelters built a few years ago and still standing in spite of the gales.  This is what OH has written about how he built it:
<The corner posts are standard 4"sq fence posts. This is good enough for ewes and lambs but will not withstand being butted by tups. The structural timbers are 4" x 2" tanalised. The vertical slats are 6" ranch boards (as used in horse fencing). The roof is corrugated galvanised steel - anything lighter shreds and blows off in gales.>
 
I would add that the floor is earth with straw.  Siting of the entrance is important and difficult - which way is the prevailing wind?  Ours comes from all around but I suppose mainly S.W but snow comes from N, NE, E and SE - this shelter faces SE and doesn't catch much weather.  It is very small but this means that the entrance is not so trampled and muddy as bigger ones.
For a tup-proof shelter, try wrapping sheep fence mesh all around the outside once it's built - this seems to hold it all together ok and spoils it for them - they can't get a really good thwack in !!
We also have a very large shelter made of semicircles of corrugated tin to give a rounded roof, attached to concreted in straining posts.  This year a HelpX worker built us a new shelter which turned out to be HUGE - I will try to get a pic when it stops raining.
We also have a little lamb shelter which is a zigzag of low boards with a couple of planks across the top, to make two triangular hideouts, which will always have one side protected - the Soays like to lamb in there too

[Fleecewife]

I forgot to add that the gaps between the vertical planks are very important for airflow to keep everything dry.

 Also the front should be wide so one ewe doesn't bags the shelter for herself and not let anyone else in.

Yet another shelter we have, used mainly by Soays and lambs, is a 400gallon black water tank cut in half lengthways, with the top widened into a front door, and the sides strengthened by a 2x2 timber base.  It's amazing how many sheep can squeeze into that. 

We also have an old horsebox which the tups live in - it is beyond use on the road so they spend many happy hours smacking their heads against it.

[humphreymctush]

slated floor is best

[humphreymctush]

I mean slatted

[Anke]

I must be extra mean to my sheep - no shelter at all (other than hedge and some trees). But as I rent two of my three fields and the one we own also now will have cattle in over summer - no chance of building shelters... However my sheep do fine and none of them died during last winter (my 12 year old shetland ewe had a stroke or something like that in March and had to be put down, she wasn't in lamb anymore anyway - but she came through all the snow and -15 deg C alright...)... so I think as long as the sheep are fed and watered well they don't actually need a shelter, I am more worried about the heat (and lack of shade) in summer than the cold in winter....