The Hexi Corridor in the northwest has cooled down a lot in the past few days. When I go out to herd sheep, I am shivering from the cold. I can clearly feel the "lethal power" brought by the cold wave. At noon today, the sun is still a little warm, and I can feel a little warmth that I haven't seen for a long time. Taking this opportunity, my uncle and I decided to take thorough measures to keep our sheep shed warm and cold-proof. We don’t want to become a “giant in words and a dwarf in action” so that the Sheep people will suffer less in the winter. First, we briefly introduce the basic structure of our simple sheep shed and the specific conditions for raising sheep.

Our simple sheep hut was renovated from an old rural house. The farmhouses here are large, with areas of 700 and 800 square meters, divided into front and back yards. The front yard is occupied by people, and the back yard is used to store debris and build sheds to raise livestock and poultry. The specific orientation of the sheep shed is east-west, which facilitates lighting; the walls of the sheep shed are all made of rammed earth and earth blocks, which saves construction costs; the door of the sheep shed was welded by a blacksmith neighbor who found steel pipes, iron sheets, etc. without spending a few dollars. Materials: The roof of the sheep shed is made into a half-yin and half-yang shape, which can protect it from the sun in summer and bask in the sun in winter. There was no place to use the trees that had been cut down many years ago, so building the ceiling of the shed came in handy. In order to supplement the trace elements for the sheep group, I hung a nutritional licking brick in the sheep shed for them to lick. My second uncle found abandoned wooden boards and made several feeding troughs for the sheep. Even the nails for the feeding trough were picked up from the construction site where he worked before, which was considered zero cost; I forgot to mention that there was a sink, so I found the materials myself. The blacksmith neighbor will fix it in a few minutes. This is all the belongings of our simple sheep shed.

Sheep shed roof and nutritional licking bricks

The specific situation of my family’s sheep raising is as follows: they have been raising sheep since my father’s generation, for about 30 years History; The main cultivated varieties include Tan sheep, Mongolian sheep, and Xiaoweihan sheep. The current focus is on cultivating polyembryonic cotton sheep, Xiaoweihan sheep; the breeding scale is small, with a maximum of 200 and a minimum of 10 or 20. However, the breeding has not been interrupted (now there are more than 30 small-tailed Han multifetal sheep); the breeding methods mainly use grazing and housing Feeding can save breeding costs to the greatest extent.

After introducing these, let me show you the warm sheep shed I built myself. There are actually only two main tasks to do: one is to seal the exposed ceiling of the sheep shed with a carpet; second, the sheep hang a thick layer of curtains on the shed door. Use carpet to close the exposed roof of the sheep shed: As mentioned before, our simple sheep shed runs east-west, with a half-yin and half-yang roof. In the face of such cold weather, the first priority is to close the ceiling of the sheep shed.

Carpet ceiling renderings

Materials required: scissors, tape measure, scrap carpet or thick plastic film (the carpet I used was given by the boss who built the road in front of my house), hand Pliers, thin wire. Use a tape measure to measure the actual dimensions of the rug, then cut it with scissors. Note that the actual size of the rug is larger than the exposed ceiling area to facilitate anchoring. Finally, use thin iron wire and hand pliers to secure the carpet firmly so that it does not blow away in the wind.

The door of the sheep shed is hung with a strong and thick curtain: the door of the sheep shed is the entrance and exit passage for the sheep. It comes and goes many times a day and cannot be closed all the time. It is most vulnerable to wind and cold. what to do? The simplest and most practical way is to cover it with thick curtains. Materials needed: Thick blanket, needle and thread, nails, hammer. It’s still the carpet above, but this time it needs to be thickened, so it needs to be folded into 4 to 5 layers, then sewn with needle and thread, 3 cloth buttons sewed on it, 3 large nails nailed to the earthen wall of the sheep shed door with a hammer, and finally Hang the cloth buckle on the large nail.

The final warm sheep shed effect, the door curtain has not been hung yet

Look at the final effect: I am quite satisfied after the completion. At least in this cold winter, my family and sheep will have a place to shelter from the wind and snow after grazing, which will make them feel much more at ease. Some friends said, if you are in such trouble, why don’t you install an air conditioner or set up a stove in your sheep shed? Sorry, I was born in a poor family when I was a child. You can’t afford air conditioning in the sheep shed, even if you could. As for the stove, you have to watch the fire prevention all day long, and you don’t have much free time.