Sometimes, the simplest ideas are the best, particularly when it comes to animals! Their needs are pretty basic on the whole: food, water, shelter, space and security and for most of ours, frequent human interaction – albeit with food in hand!!! Goats love to climb and are happiest standing up on hind legs browsing. It has thus been tricky thinking how best to provide hay for them outside. They have racks in the barn and field shelters but we have been very keen to get them NOT to hang around in their field shelters all day, particularly with the weather being so fab. Hay racks attached to the outside of the field shelters are not great as poaching then becomes a major problem. Mobile hay racks are easily bought BUT they tend to be low (for sheep and cows) and NOT climb-up-able (for obvious reasons).
Enter the versatile sheep hurdle: 3 4-foot hurdles in a triangle make for a pretty sturdy structure and the hay racks pictured are actually designed to fit on top. It’s not QUITE as movable as a rack on wheels but is easy for 2 people and of course we can avoid poaching of the ground by moving it as often as we need.
AND the alpacas and sheep can access it too which may stop them going into the field shelters at night and poo-ing!!!
(Probably NOT suitable for cows though...)
Happy animals all round!!