Top 4 types of sheep feeders, sizes and how to do it yourself

In summer, flocks of sheep graze in meadows and glades, where juicy forbs reign. In autumn and winter, it’s time to feed the small livestock with hay, silage, compound feed, root crops and grain crops. To make the food dosed and comfortable, summer residents put feeders for sheep. There are several types and designs of fixtures.

Description and types of sheep feeders

According to the installation method, the fixtures are divided into 3 types. It:

1. Capital structures. They are mounted in a designated area of ​​a sheepfold or in a pasture. The stationary feeder superstructure is rigidly attached to the base.
2. Mobile devices. They are used to feed flocks that have been driven to distant grazing. There, cattle are regularly moved from one place to another. Portable structures are quickly dismantled and transported behind the herd.
3. Universal devices. Combine the parameters of stationary and portable feeders. They can be securely attached to the floors of the sheepfold or grazing ground. When moving the flock to the next place or to a new room, the structure is dismantled and carried behind the animals.

The structure of the trough depends on the type of food used. There are two types of devices:

• manger, playpens, reptukhi for fresh and dry grass (hay);
• containers, bunkers for grain, silage (chopped succulent vegetation), melons and root crops.

Feeder materials:

• plastic;
• concrete gutters;
• boards, wooden beams;
• bricks;
• sheet, profiled and pipe metal.

Types of feeders:

Where to buy a ready-made version?

It is difficult to purchase a ready-made feeder for sheep and rams in online stores. There are few options. So, on some farm portals (for example, "Agroserver") mounted bunkers made of plastic are sold, equipped with a cover of 0.33 × 0.28 m. However, a cursory inspection is enough to understand that they are unreliable and fragile.

A good option is to buy a feeder or a reptuh (mesh bag made of cloth, rope) at a farm store for less money. There is not much choice in it, but products can be returned or exchanged.

How to make a do-it-yourself feeder

Now there is a shortage of quality ready-made feeders. Therefore, the best option is to do it yourself.

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Wooden

For a lumber feeder you will need:

The simplest option for a lumber hay nursery:

	4 bars with a length of 1.25 m and a section of 6 × 6 cm are sawn off. They are knocked down in pairs crosswise. The resulting racks look like the letter X.
	Supports are placed vertically on two ends and opposite each other. On both sides of the center of the crosses, the crossbeams are screwed with self-tapping screws. The materials for them are bars 2 m long and 5 × 5 cm in cross section.
	The same bridges, which give the structure rigidity, are screwed on top of the supports.
	For the lathing, slats with a length of 60 cm and a section of 4 × 4 are taken. They are nailed vertically to the upper and lower lintels, in 0.25 m increments.

Manezhnaya

Some farmers and summer residents use a witty life hack. They use a playpen made of wood, plastic, aluminum as a feeder. It rises 50 cm above the ground or the floor of the sheepfold. When the crate of the wooden arena is too frequent, every second rail is dismantled. In this case, the sheep will be able to easily push their head to the feed.

If there is no old arena, it can be knocked down from lumber or welded from pipes.

Bunker

The bunker is a stationary trough with an inclined platform. It makes it possible to give the animals a certain feeding on a weekly basis. The structure is hung on one of the walls of the sheepfold. That plays the role of the back wall of the structure. Facade of the fixture is lattice. Its slats are mounted at intervals slightly larger than the dimensions of an adult sheep's head.

In the inner space of the trough, a wooden or metal ramp is placed. On it, the food will slide to the crate.

How to make a combined feeder:

Metal

For the installation of a metal nursery, 2 sections of a tubular fence-picket fence are needed. These workpieces are welded to each other at an angle of 90º using electric welding. The resulting V is placed on the base of a large steel trough. Then it sticks to it in several places by welding.

The resulting device is durable, practical and very effective when feeding sheep with dry and fresh grasses.

The only drawback of the design is that it is made of a relatively expensive material.

Salt feeders

The trough-shaped device for silage, grain, salt is made from supporting vertical bars. The bottom of the boards, lathing or walls and a groove are nailed to them. The gaps between the railings of the fence are 0.1 m. The bars are stuffed with an internal slope.

The depth of the groove is 0.12 m, the width at the top is 0.15 m, and at the bottom is 0.13. To prevent the sheep from scattering loose feed and salt, planks are nailed in the upper part of the trough with a step of 25 cm.

Drinking bowl manufacturing

Sheep need not only food, but also water. Therefore, they need to be watered periodically. The simplest adaptation for this:

	A few old tires from trucks are taken, sawn lengthwise and in half with an electric jigsaw.
	Smaller tires from passenger cars are inserted into the slope holes. This is done half of their width. Before that, you need to select products that are suitable for the cross section.
	Both structural elements are pierced in several places with an awl and screwed to each other with pieces of wire.
	The resulting drinkers are placed over the sheepfold and filled with water.

For watering lambs, plastic eggplants equipped with a nipple-nipple on the neck are ideal. They can be found at any pet store.

To water all the babies at the same time, you can take a narrow trough-shaped feeder and make round holes in both of its walls. Insert bottles into them and secure them. So you can not only water the lambs, but also feed very small animals with milk.

How to make a drinker:

Farmers' mistakes

Inexperienced summer residents and farmers make a number of mistakes when feeding and watering small livestock. Here are the most common ones:

1. There are no drinkers near the feeders. Some livestock breeders are convinced that in winter, livestock does not need to be provided with moisture, because they eat snow. This is the wrong approach. Frozen and thus purified water contains very few trace elements necessary for sheep.
2. There is no drainage near the drinkers. The liquid is spilled from them, sometimes the sheep turn the devices over. Shepherd's unpaved floors cannot fully absorb moisture. Slush forms on them, which the sheep mix with their feces. This liquid mud is an ideal medium for pathogens and putrefactive microorganisms.
3. There is no proper care for the feeders. A lot of stuck feed remains in dirty implements. It begins to decompose, and harmful microbes grow in it. From this, animals develop digestive problems or they begin to get sick.