Building Requirements for Sheep Housing in Confined Sheep Farming and Key Points of Feeding Management
Building Requirements for Sheep Housing in Confined Sheep Farming and Feeding Management
Whether the sheep pen building is reasonable has a great bearing on the growth and development of sheep. For a long time, farmers in our county have raised sheep by free-range grazing, with pens bedded with straw to accumulate manure; in some cases sheep and cattle were kept in the same pen, the pens were damp and lacked sunlight, and the goats frequently fell ill, showing growth in spring and summer, fattening in autumn and death in winter, causing enormous losses to sheep-raising households. The main reasons are that the pen buildings are unscientific and non-standard, and management is relatively poor. In order to ensure the healthy growth and breeding of goats and promote the development of the sheep-raising industry, the author, taking into account the climate conditions of this county and the living habits of goats, has formulated building requirements for goat pens, for the reference of farmers raising sheep in building pens.
1 Basic Requirements
The basic requirements for a sheep house are ventilation and dryness, hygiene and cleanliness, cool in summer and warm in winter. Sheep house buildings are divided into confined-farming sheep houses and free-range sheep houses, and their construction purposes differ. A free-range sheep house only provides the flock with rest and sleep, with no exercise yard, no feed trough and no hay rack. Goats are lively and active by nature, and a confined-farming sheep house requires an exercise yard of a certain size; otherwise, because the flock's activity space is small and the flock gets insufficient exercise, not only is the flock's growth affected, but a series of diseases are also brought to the flock. Therefore, a confined-farming sheep house must not only have a resting and sleeping place with good ventilation, strong warmth retention and dryness and cleanliness, but also have an exercise yard built outside the sheep house with an area 2 to 3 times larger than the sheep house area, so as to facilitate the flock's activity and sunbathing, ensure the flock's health and growth needs, and also benefit large-scale breeding and intensive management of confined goats. Confined goats gain weight quickly, with the daily weight gain 2% higher than grazing; adult sheep can be sold after 60 days of fattening, which can improve the economic benefits of sheep raising.
2 Sheep House Construction
2.1 Selection of the sheep house site The sheep house should be built in the center of the grassland, close to a water source, with convenient transport, open terrain, warm in winter and cool in summer, good drainage, and preferably on slightly sloping flat ground on a south-facing slope.
2.2 Sheep house construction standards Because the climate of Guizhou Province is rainy and humid, it is better to build a storey-style sheep house. Inside the house, the upper floor height is 2 m, the door width is 1 m, and the sheep house wall height is 1.2 m, with the top open or fitted with glass windows opening outward, which helps regulate the indoor temperature; the platform is 0.8 to 1.5 m above the ground, and the ground below the house slopes outward at 45° toward the outside of the house, so that sheep manure and urine flow into the manure pit. The length of the sheep house depends on the scale of sheep raising and the site, but it should be divided into several small pens of 4×3 m specification to facilitate classified feeding and management of the flock. The sheep bed can be laid with wooden strips 10 cm wide and 3.5 cm thick, slightly sloping, with gaps of 1 to 1.5 cm, so that sheep manure and urine drip smoothly below the bed and the sheep stay clean all day long. The exercise yard must be closely connected to the sheep house, with three sides built of brick as courtyard walls and partition walls, with a height of 1.5 m, to prevent the sheep from escaping; the ground of the exercise yard is treated with cement, required to be level and have a 2° slope, with ditches around it, and no water may accumulate in the yard, keeping it clean and dry.
2.3 Area The sheep house area can be designed according to the breeding scale; too large an area causes waste, while too small an area is not conducive to scaled production. Usually the house area is calculated at 1 square meter per sheep, and at 2 square meters per breeding ram and ewe; the pens for breeding rams and ewes must be built separately, the lambing pen can be built at 20% of the number of base ewes, and the exercise yard area is generally 2 to 2.5 times the sheep house area. If the flock is large and the site is wide, a double-row sheep pen can be built; if the number is small or the site width is below 6 m, a single-row sheep pen can be built, and the single-row type can be built at half the dimensions of the double-row type.
2.4 Feed troughs and hay racks Used for supplementary feeding, watering and salt supply, they can be set up separately or combined into a joint hay and feed rack. A movable long trough rack nailed together from wooden boards is the most practical; generally the trough is 2 m long, 20 cm high, 35 cm wide at the top and 30 cm wide at the bottom, and it is generally placed outside the sheep house so that the sheep's feet do not step into the rack and feed does not fall on the sheep's body.
1 Basic Requirements
The basic requirements for a sheep house are ventilation and dryness, hygiene and cleanliness, cool in summer and warm in winter. Sheep house buildings are divided into confined-farming sheep houses and free-range sheep houses, and their construction purposes differ. A free-range sheep house only provides the flock with rest and sleep, with no exercise yard, no feed trough and no hay rack. Goats are lively and active by nature, and a confined-farming sheep house requires an exercise yard of a certain size; otherwise, because the flock's activity space is small and the flock gets insufficient exercise, not only is the flock's growth affected, but a series of diseases are also brought to the flock. Therefore, a confined-farming sheep house must not only have a resting and sleeping place with good ventilation, strong warmth retention and dryness and cleanliness, but also have an exercise yard built outside the sheep house with an area 2 to 3 times larger than the sheep house area, so as to facilitate the flock's activity and sunbathing, ensure the flock's health and growth needs, and also benefit large-scale breeding and intensive management of confined goats. Confined goats gain weight quickly, with the daily weight gain 2% higher than grazing; adult sheep can be sold after 60 days of fattening, which can improve the economic benefits of sheep raising.
2 Sheep House Construction
2.1 Selection of the sheep house site The sheep house should be built in the center of the grassland, close to a water source, with convenient transport, open terrain, warm in winter and cool in summer, good drainage, and preferably on slightly sloping flat ground on a south-facing slope.
2.2 Sheep house construction standards Because the climate of Guizhou Province is rainy and humid, it is better to build a storey-style sheep house. Inside the house, the upper floor height is 2 m, the door width is 1 m, and the sheep house wall height is 1.2 m, with the top open or fitted with glass windows opening outward, which helps regulate the indoor temperature; the platform is 0.8 to 1.5 m above the ground, and the ground below the house slopes outward at 45° toward the outside of the house, so that sheep manure and urine flow into the manure pit. The length of the sheep house depends on the scale of sheep raising and the site, but it should be divided into several small pens of 4×3 m specification to facilitate classified feeding and management of the flock. The sheep bed can be laid with wooden strips 10 cm wide and 3.5 cm thick, slightly sloping, with gaps of 1 to 1.5 cm, so that sheep manure and urine drip smoothly below the bed and the sheep stay clean all day long. The exercise yard must be closely connected to the sheep house, with three sides built of brick as courtyard walls and partition walls, with a height of 1.5 m, to prevent the sheep from escaping; the ground of the exercise yard is treated with cement, required to be level and have a 2° slope, with ditches around it, and no water may accumulate in the yard, keeping it clean and dry.
2.3 Area The sheep house area can be designed according to the breeding scale; too large an area causes waste, while too small an area is not conducive to scaled production. Usually the house area is calculated at 1 square meter per sheep, and at 2 square meters per breeding ram and ewe; the pens for breeding rams and ewes must be built separately, the lambing pen can be built at 20% of the number of base ewes, and the exercise yard area is generally 2 to 2.5 times the sheep house area. If the flock is large and the site is wide, a double-row sheep pen can be built; if the number is small or the site width is below 6 m, a single-row sheep pen can be built, and the single-row type can be built at half the dimensions of the double-row type.
2.4 Feed troughs and hay racks Used for supplementary feeding, watering and salt supply, they can be set up separately or combined into a joint hay and feed rack. A movable long trough rack nailed together from wooden boards is the most practical; generally the trough is 2 m long, 20 cm high, 35 cm wide at the top and 30 cm wide at the bottom, and it is generally placed outside the sheep house so that the sheep's feet do not step into the rack and feed does not fall on the sheep's body.