Rotational grazing and loafing sheds

[KeepingItAtHome]

So we've figured out how to do portable water troughs, but shelter is another issue. How do you provide adequate shelter if you've separated your field into small paddocks? We're going to have rather small paddocks as we're only looking to have 5-6 cows at a time on 12 acres.

[ycanchu2]

Shelter from what? Most cattle don't have shelter...just shade. and for that you just need to make a permanent lane to shade somewhere. I guess you could build shelters for shade in each paddock if you wanted to go to the trouble.

[G. Seddon]

Google "portable shade for cattle" and you'll find some options. Not sure of the cost, however.

Shade and access to clean fresh water were the two considerations we dealt with here when we divided our pastures and one of the pastures has some fairly awkward fencing to make shade available. Now that it's in the upper 80s and lower 90s, I'm glad we did.

[KeepingItAtHome]

Shelter from freezing rain and hail. Golf ball sized hail is not uncommon most of spring and about once a year we get up to baseball sized.

We're thinking about lanes though.

My concern with the portable shelters is that they either looked really flimsy or really tough to move.

[simi-steading]

You could build something like this using some small trees as posts and beams you cut down if you have any on your property.. The only costs would be nails or screws, and some metal roofing..

I couldn't find any good pictures of one built using small trees, but I imagine you understand...

[sammyd]

Organic place I was at, we had a cover all type building close to the parlor.
Cows could be diverted to that in case of icy rain. We would feed hay for the day.
Rest of the time the cows were out on pasture. We had woods along the west edge and tried to run them in paddocks along the woods during the daytime so they could get some shade.