my friend dave finishes welding and then later delivers my new mobile sheet pen
so i can get my lambs out on pasture and do rotational grazing without any electric fencing
and we also bring my meat chickens to harvest all coming up on the grass-fed homestead
i want to move my lambs onto fresh pasture each day but breaking down moving and setting
up fencing each day is too time consuming for my complicated schedule in an attempt to solve that
problem last summer i built a mobile sheet pen using corral panels and wood to stabilize it since
i didn't have any welding skills this just didn't work well it was too heavy for me to move myself
so i needed a second person to move the sheep i seldom had access to a second person so the
sheep just didn't get moved as much as they needed the struggle was real it was
super frustrating but that's when i got an email from someone who would later become
my new friend dave i remember watching and you were trying to put together a mobile grazing
pen with uh some horse panel and other things had some problems and they kept getting out and
then i remember you guys posted up or a link to justin's mobile pin and i was just looking at
it thinking you know that's that's pretty easy to build i sent dan an email and we kind of started
conversing from that i think that was later last summer when i was visiting with justin rhodes at
his homestead earlier this spring i just happened to run into ben holler who happened to be the
person who built justin's 16 foot by 16 foot sheep cage after consulting with ben i decided that a 10
by 10 sheep cage would be better for my homestead because it would be lighter easier to maneuver and
cheaper to build i met dave in town to acquire the materials i bought the wheels at harbor freight
i also got eight pieces of 20-foot 1x1 by 1 8 inch steel tubing and then a steel plate i also
needed three cattle panels and dave took care of the rest then i prefab the panels and we cut the
hog panel and got it on to the prefab frames and that's where we are today so we'll stand
that up and kind of get it tacked together so now we're going to start attaching the panels together
to create the the actual pen and i've got a couple clamps on a little square holding it
and we get go start each corner go around and tack it all up and measure it for square
and then we'll put the braces on the top a few days later dave loaded up the sheet pen onto
his dump trailer and transported to my homestead so shelly what happened with the tree limbs up
there um that actually was from your driveway we didn't hit any trees until right down here
and so that uh tell your neighbors sorry they won't miss it this is so awesome
the sheep are in that tractor right there so we pulled the trailer down further
down the driveway we're gonna unload it here so it'll be easy transition to get the sheep in
last time we got it stood up uh i've added the wheels and braces for the wheels i got it squared
up and then put the cross braces on the top uh just for security i added some little gussets
down in the corners i don't know that that's necessary but it's there we got the gate installed
it droops a little bit it's really killing my ocd but it's a sheep tank so
i'll let it slide any welding machine will do this be it stick mig tig you could go to harbor
freight and buy literally the cheapest little buzz box stick welding machine and practice on
some scrap metal it's more than powerful enough to weld one by one by eighth inch material
together
do
dave thank you so much for all of your hard work on this you're welcome you've made
you've changed the whole trajectory of the homestead this year with us thank you
so this is some north idaho honey for you guys cool um i hope you enjoy it
hey seth what do you think of the new sheep shelter they're pretty nice you like it do you
want to go in there with them yeah little buddy what do you think of the new sheep mobile pen
it's pretty cool oh oh also viewers um my arms are only in here because they're getting pretty hot
do
looking little buddy everything looks good yeah they ate all the grass out of here but
they left a lot of the leaves on the knapweed stems now it's time to put this thing to the
test we're gonna do our first move with the mobile sheet pen dave hasn't added the metal
ring attachments yet to where we can attach a pull rope in the meantime we're gonna have to push
it
what'd you think it was fun yeah was it hard yeah that certainly wasn't
easy to push but we were able to do it which is a huge step up from last year
do you know why we don't have to feed them today
um are we butchering them yeah tomorrow oh tomorrow today's their last day
so we don't feed them on the last day though i do all my own lamb and pig harvesting i do
outsource the chicken harvesting there's a lady who lives right down the street from me
who does it professionally she has all the gear she's super close and she's affordable time is
up for the chickens it is time to bring them to harvest you ready catch some chickens how
about you little buddy you ready to catch chickens totally dance partners help set up this we put in
this net right here hopefully the chickens will go under there and stay in there for the very short
ride over to the harvest place we have to gather the chickens the night before harvest
and then deliver them to this lady who then starts harvesting them early the next morning so we're
just going to catch them one at a time and put them in the bed of the truck you ready i'm ready
what do you think steph pretty cool is that fun yeah is that good keep going
so if you grab them by two feet watch can i show you
two feet like this and then hang onto a wing like that
it's okay
everything went really well with the chicken harvest i picked up my bagged chickens the next
morning along with the offal and the necks which i save as treats for the animals chickens have been
harvested we picked them up this morning got them in the freezer now we have the little bits that
we're going to distribute as treats these are all the hearts those are the hearts who do you want
to give the hearts to we have blue we can give them to or we can give them to pigs pig all right
hey piggy piggy bacon pork chop wake up come on yeah there there you go
okay let's go eat come on guys we got some chicken hearts
we are gonna fade the lip there's delivers the blue and the chicken necks
oh yep comes the hands
there you go you got it here he goes
though you may not be able to tell from the video blue did certainly enjoy the treats
next week i'll have another new video published on the channel but until then
check out this video right here chances are you're gonna like it go ahead and click on it give it a
watch and i'll see you over there thank you for watching thank you for subscribing and liking the
videos