[Jacob-list] Feeding Hay

[ranchrat]

Cindy aka im rapunzil im-rapunzil at hotmail.com wrote:
"Any ideas for feeding Jacobs hay from something that they won't get
their horns stuck in?  I'm nervous about using a metal hay rack.  Thank
you!"
Heel low:
After 15 years of good service...our Telus server has been having
hiccups.hope it is not too late to add to this topic.
We use the 100 pound sized rubber tubs placed inside a recycled big rig
tractor trailer rubber tire (bring a pan along to find the right tires
to fit).  The tire holds the deep rubber pan put, and the size walls of
the tire keeps the sheep from making too much of a waste by dragging hay
all over the place when they back up or lift heads to chew/swallow.  If
you shop hard, you may find the rubber pans on sale for about twenty
bucks.  Course the tires are free for the hauling.  One rubber feeder
will adequately accommodate five full fleeced ewes or about 8 defleeced,
pending how amiable our flock is to each other.  When feeding an
alfalfa, the leaves are shaken to the bottom of the pan and you'll find
the sheep digging and tossing stems trying to get to the "cream."  I
rake those stems up round the feeders and the sheep make noxious
comments about my thriftiness, but whatever!  Candies gone, eat your
veggies.we've had pans brimming with stems and all these pathetic, woe
are we looking Jacobs."Do we hafta??"  
I also use a discarded ATV tire with a rubber pail (the handle is
chained to the wall of the barn-expect rusting!) for dispensing
granularized mineral/salt-we won't use blocks, as they wear ruminant
teeth down prematurely.  There is a shallow, medium sized rubber pan
(forget the capacity) that fits well inside a regular pickup sized tire
and we use this for the rams salt/mineral which gives them more head
room, due to their much larger horn size.
These feeders are not rain/moisture resistant (in fact, I use one as a
waterer in the ram pen) but if the season is overly rainy, I just roll
the tire up against the barn and the awnings on the barn shield the
feeders from the torrential downpours we get in June.course by then, the
sheep are mostly on pasture grass.  These feeders are portable and I'll
move them around the pasture in winter...the sheep then stomp down the
snow and I don't have to shovel a path so often.Rick is always away
doing paid snow removal (grader) and me and the motorized snowblower
don't get along all that well.  VBG
If water inside the tire is a concern (mosquito breeding ground), you
may drill some large holes in the side walls to allow water to pass.
These pan feeders accommodate all sorts of livestock (I even have a deep
one for our Mandarin Ducks to use as a private, personal pond), so if
you get out of Jacobs like many do, the feeders will work for horses,
bull, or whatnots.
We find most of our "caught horn" issues come from the welded combo wire
panels we use to perimeter fence.  Kinda a conundrum, as you need to
predator proof your place (zero predation since Earth Day 2007 and that
was a silly yard chicken that decided to stay out and got ate by an
otherwise mouse eating owl), so the odd horn mishap is justified by the
animals ongoing existence in the land of the living I suppose.   
Was given three of those large metal caged industrial containers used in
oil field (you see them with poly tanks inside) and it was not the sheep
that had issues using it as a feeder, it was the Nigerian Dwarf Dairy
Goats (we don't show them, so one doe has horns) that insisted on
sticking their heads inside, once the horns slipped in, they never
figured out how to back out.  I got real tired of going out to pull
Penny's head out of the feeder as she screamed bloomin' murder.  Stoopid
or stubborn, the goats never learned but the sheep never tried to wedge
their heads inside the galvanized squares.  The three containers are now
temporary fence holder/uppers in the ram pasture.
http://www.wolven.ca/higgins/ratranch
<http://wolven.ca/higgins/ratranch> 
On the "Jacob Sheep & Ruminant" page, one may see these containers used
as fence holders in the pic entitled: "Ruminants out grazing in the Ram
Pasture." and the mineral dispenser beside the barn is just seeable in
the pic "Appalosa Llama BTU and some of his Jacob Sheep."
If you have difficulty visualizing any of this other stuff, like the
feeder/mineral dispensers, I may forward you pics, jest ask.
Oh, and BTW Cindy, we have six horn ewe we produced from a two horn sire
and four horn dam in 2005.
Doggone & Chicken UP,
Tara - in frosty Alberta.yeh hard frost in July, what next, snow in
August like in 2001??
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm - Proudly Raising Jacobs since 2003 
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    ____(\                Tara Lee Higgins                 /)____
   (_____~>    Higgins Rat Ranch - An ACD is for LIFE     <~_____)
  ( ``  ``                Alberta, Canada                  ``  `` )
   \                  ranchrat at telusplanet.net                   /
    )          http://www.wolven.ca/higgins/ratranch
<http://wolven.ca/higgins/ratranch>             (

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