What’s in your Livestock Shed? visits £115k lambing shed

Investing in a lambing shed might seem extravagant for a sheep farmer renting all their ground, but Annie Carr of The Brays in Herefordshire has costed the expense down to the last penny.

Her attention to detail, combined with exceptional lambing performance and low losses, are more than paying dividends.

See also: 20 tips for lambing from award-winning sheep farmers

Tell us about the building

The shed measures 30.5×21.3m and can be divided into five bays on each side, each 6m wide, with a 4.6m central feed passage. It houses 400 ewes (40 to a bay).

© Rhian Price Media

Yorkshire-boarded hatch doors run the length of the shed to improve ventilation. We winter-shear all in-lamb ewes in early January.

They take up less space and stay cleaner, and, when they lamb, their lambs aren’t sucking dirty wool.

After shearing, I close the hatch doors so it’s warmer for the ewes, while the protected open ridge maintains airflow.

Annie Carr © Rhian Price Media

How much did it cost?

The shed cost £81,000. We spent £8,200 on groundworks, £19,000 on concreting, and £6,900 on fixtures and fittings.

The total bill came to £115,100.

Who constructed it?

Groundworks and concreting were done by Nick Kinahan, while Fowler and Gilbert erected the shed.

How long did it take to build?

Five months. The plans were approved in March 2023, work started immediately, and the shed was completed by August 2023 – ready for its first lambing season the following spring.

Sliding doors save space © Rhian Price Media

How is the shed used?

Ewes are housed for four months from December. For the rest of the year, the building doubles up as machinery storage for my father’s contracting business.

This season, I also housed 95 tail-end lambs in August and fed them concentrates to finish. Normally, I would feed them forage rape, but the dry summer made it impossible to establish.

Housed ewes are fed ad-lib silage through a straw chopper. I left enough space around the shed for tractor turning and feed access.

Ewes are scanned on 20 January, after which singles, twins and triplets are managed separately. Silage quality is matched to ewe requirements, with triplets and twins also receiving concentrate three weeks pre-lambing.

Ewes have 15cm of feed space a head at the central passage, but once concentrates are introduced, I place troughs inside pens to ensure all ewes can access feed comfortably.

Custom-made pens can be put up and taken down quickly © Rhian Price Media

As lambing nears, singles are moved into an adjacent lean-to shed, freeing three bays to make 1.2×1.8m lambing pens.

Lambing lasts three weeks – I lamb alone largely, with some help from my mother and sister, and I want a compact season.

Teaser rams are used for 14 days, with high ram power of one ram to every 50 ewes. Anything not in lamb after one cycle is culled.

After lambing, ewes move into a mothering pen of 10-12 ewes before turnout. The aim is to get them onto grass within 48 hours.

Why did you put up the shed?

I wanted to get ewes in the right condition to maximise performance.

Outwintering would mean renting more grass or winter crops, whereas housing allows me to rest grass and ensures high-quality spring grass is ­available for turnout, and lambs fly.

While the cost of a shed is substantial, spread over 20 years it works out less than £15 a head annually for 400 ewes: £115,100 divided by 20 = £5,755/year; divided by 400 ewes = £14.38 a ewe. This is similar to paying for winter grazing, but gives me far greater control of diets.

I analyse all feed, so I know exactly what energy ewes are getting at each stage – something you can’t do with grass or turnips so easily.

Tell us about your favourite aspects

I opted for 2m-high concrete wall panels to make cleaning easier, with floors sloping into drains.

There are 4.6m sliding doors at each end of the feed passage, which take up less space than hinged doors.

There are also 3.6m split-sheeted gates at each end of the ewe pens, which are safer in windy conditions.

LED roof lights illuminate each pen and can be controlled in quarters to make it darker.

What couldn’t you live without?

The custom-made sheep barriers and hurdles from Presteigne Gates are lightweight and quick to erect or dismantle – taking half a day.

We pre-cast holes in the concrete for locking feed barriers and pen divisions into place, and we have covers to stop the muck filling up the holes when they are not in use.

I also like the IAE water troughs. They are wall-mounted and sit behind steel uprights, so they don’t stick out.

© Rhian Price Media

Is there anything you would do differently if you were to build it again?

In hindsight, I’d have built it bigger. A kitchen was installed one end – mainly for handwashing and cleaning equipment. This takes up a bit of space but works well.

Since winning the award, I have taken on an extra 40ha (100 acres) from neighbouring arable farms and will be tupping 580 ewes this autumn, with scope to increase numbers by another 200 ewes.

The lean-to can fit 200 ewes so I can house 600 over winter easily.