When we adopted our first sheep back in December 2021, we set to work building a simple shelter for them, "Ewe-topia". The initial advice we received from people in the community was that hair sheep didn't really need a shelter. As long as you had shade trees they'd be fine. But we couldn't picture them out in the open during nasty weather, especially hurricane season!
Unfortunately, a hard lesson was learned as Pip, the black sheep above, was taken by a coyote despite our barbed wire farm fencing around the perimeter of the pasture. So from that devastating event, we knew we had to create a bona fide fortress. We put in a roughly 40ftx40ft fenced enclosure around Ewe-topia, complete with motion sensor lights and more barbed wire. But the plot thickens...
Two more sheep, Bean and Tofu arrived shortly after Pip was taken, so we were up to 5 sheep. We needed to expand Ewe-topia. Oh, and one other thing to mention, it turns out Boomi, the large sheep in the picture above was actually pregnant when we adopted her! We had no idea. So we had to enlarge Ewe-topia so she'd have sufficient space to bond with her newborn lamb. Uh, well, lambs. She had twins - April and Uno!
Things were getting seriously crowded, so it was time for a new shed. I know the plot already thickened, but it's about get thickeneder? Fun fact: it's pretty hard to know a sheep is pregnant until they get relatively close to the end. Turns out BOTH Bean and Tofu also arrived pregnant at Snoot Farms. Yay! But ugh. So if my math is right, we were likely to have two new lambs and 9 total sheep. What was happening?!?!
So in the span of one month we had a fancy pants enclosure, a new sheep shack, and, oh yeah, 4 lambs! But alas, Sheepy Hollow was not quite finished...
We rescued Sybil Merriweather this past October and now we were up to 10 sheep. Let's not panic. We can handle this. Hmmm...time for another sheep shed.
So Sheepy Hollow was looking good and we even made a nice new hay feeder for them. But we still needed another sheepy shack. Fortunately, my dad was in town and he helped me build a great new structure and my mom painted all of the sleeping quarters.
Now Sheepy Hollow is it's own little thriving suburb at Snoot Farms, and they flockin' love it!
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