Loafing Sheds

The previous owner of the property had built partial loafing sheds. Mostly they were four poles with tin roofs. A couple of them have wooden sides half way up. We found that these were not enough shelter for the animals when it was both raining and freezing. They didn't seem to mind standing in the rain, even pouring, driving rain this past summer, but they were obviously miserable when they got wet and cold. From what I've read about donkeys, their coats don't shed water like a horse's will. They just get soaked to the skin. It didn't seem to be a good idea to let the babies get soaked with the freezing weather coming.

The sheds didn't do much more than provide shade in the summer because the wind blew through them, carrying the rain right along. So Tom's project as been enclosing the sheds on three and a half sides. It's much cozier for them and they hunker down in the sheds when the weather gets bad.

To enclose the goat shed, Tom used some tin that he got off the old barn. Then he bought some new tin to enclose the donkey shed. His plan was to paint the sheds to match the barn. I didn't like that because I'm sure that painting the sheds will be such a low priority that it will never get done, but Tom insisted that he will paint them. Then, we priced the paint and discovered that it will cost more to paint the sheds than to buy the tin already painted the right color. Sigh.

Anyway, Tom got two sheds done with a little help from me and more from Paden and his friend.