
Extra Uses – polytunnel for livestock
Polytunnels offer a highly versatile addition to any farm. When the lambing season is finished, it can be used as a handling unit, or a dry storage area for machinery, fertiliser, feedstuff, or wool.
The polytunnel can be used to hold over groups of sheep to help them dry out pre-clipping or post-dipping or when sheep have had their wool dyed pre-sale.
An empty sheep house/ livestock polytunnel can be used to rear calves or grow crops and flowers to supply local shops and garden centres, making the polytunnel a truly year-round investment.
The polytunnel provides much-welcomed light and warmth with improved food conversion rates and a healthier, drier environment, less favourable to many bacteria and fungi growth.
This natural short-wave radiation from daylight also helps create drier conditions reducing bedding costs and energy requirements.
On considering the size of the tunnel required, Highland polytunnels advise, “It depends on how many sheep you want to house or what area you have available as a suitable site.”
“Competition for space can contribute to serious health and welfare problems as nutritional and social stresses increase in the run-up to lambing.”
Ideally, plan for 1.0 – 1.2 m2 floor space for medium size ewes up to 80 kg. Allow 0.30 – 0.35 m feeding space per medium-sized ewe which enables concentrate to be fed to all ewes at once.