The time immediately before and after lambing can be especially hard on a ewe. Just like humans, they are getting ready to go through a big change, and need to feed another life (or two or three!). to help with this process, we like to supplement our ewes with grain before and after lambing to keep body weight up and help feed the lambs.

With our ewes out in the pasture we had to come up with a way to feed them grain up off of the ground in order to keep the grain fresh and clean. At first we tried hay feeders but they were just too big; the ewes would just jump in the feeders to try and get to the grain!

So Harry came up with a great DIY project for us to make our own grain feeders. We will share our step by step process below.

Materials needed:
8” SDR35 drain pipe
Bolts
Self tapping screws
Rebar
Metal or aluminum to make the legs

We ended up using scrap from an old aluminum pool fence to make our legs, so anything you might have on hand could work!

1. Cut the drain pipe in half. Try to stay as even and level as you can so you can use both sides.

2. Cut scrap aluminum or metal at 10”.   We used two legs in three places per feeder. So, six leg pieces per feeder

3. Bolt two leg pieces in an X. Make sure it is wide enough for the pipe to sit in the top and that the legs are stable.

4. Place pipe halves on top of leg X’s and use self tapping screws to connect

5. Drill 1” holes in both ends of the pipe halves. This is for placing rebar through and into the ground to stabilize feeders in the pasture.

We made something a little different for feeding in our pen. We used the same drain pipe but this time we attached brackets so the feeders would hang from the wood walls of the pen.

Harry welded together some scrap metal to make brackets and we used self tapping screws to attach to the pipe.

Now all of our grain feeding can be done up off the ground and we don’t have ewes making a mess or wasting grain.

Questions or Comments? Feel free to reach out to us!