The Wooden Hay Bunk

One painful moment of my childhood was a confrontation I had with my father in an episode that has played a major role in my life from that point forward.  If you look in the picture to the right, you will see the wooden hay bunk for my sheep that became the source of contention between my father and myself.  I was only about 16 or 17 years old at the time and my sheep were my life.  I was fast becoming an experienced learner in how to raise sheep.

As the days went, I had nowhere to feed hay to my sheep except on the ground.  Throughout the winter months, you would feed bales of hay to them since there was no grass to eat.  Often you would throw out extra ears of corn that we picked up from the fields to help give them protein and calories.  They were often pregnant and so to help their lamb mature inside the womb and to help them weather the harsh Iowa winters, this feed was vital for them to survive and produce viable lambs.

Putting hay on the ground was one way to feed them, but that often meant they were eating whatever was on the ground.  In a sheep lot, there are things that just aren't healthy for them to eat and sometimes they can pick up parasites from the practice.  Plus, if the hay was on the ground, a lot of good food would be wasted from being trampled by the sheep, which means it gets more expensive to feed the sheep.