Icelandic Sheep Supplies: The List of Equipment for Keeping Sheep

Icelandic sheep are some of the easiest and most robust sheep to keep on a small farm or shareholding. They have a great multi-purpose fleece, thrive on pasture alone with no graining, and are pretty independent.  That said, you'll obviously need a few pieces of equipment before you bring your new flock home. This is the list of basic equipment supplies you'll need to keep Icelandic Sheep.

Fencing: Field fence can be purchased locally from your local feed store. This is a woven wire fence with narrower gaps on the bottom (to keep lambs in) and wider gaps at the top (to keep the weight down), which goes up "relatively" easily. You do have to pound in posts, you should brace the corners, and you'll need to buy and install gates. Which means heavy posts and probably cement bases. But field fence has the advantage in the northeast of being up all the time... including the winter, which electric doesn't work so well in. There are other options to field fence: welded wire, which tends to stand straighter and has very small openings, making it virtually predator proof, and high tensile, which is usually available from a regional source and requires special expertise to install.

Fence posts for field fence can be cedar or metal. If you decide to go with metal, sit down with your yellow pages and start calling fencing companies. One of them may have the contract on repairing and replacing the fences along your interstate. They pull out and sell perfectly useable, very robust, fence posts for a fraction of the price you could expect to get a new and less robust post from your local feed store. Delivery can generally be arranged, but you'll need to buy about 50 posts. Which sounds like more than it is, trust us. You'll end up finding a use for every one.

One of our Icelandic Sheep farms: The Farm at Morrison Corner uses field fence for their winter paddock. It keeps the sheep securely contained through the drifts of winter. However, they also flake out portable electrified mesh fencing come spring lambing season. The field fence is too loose and too easy for a predator to breech when the lambs are tiny.

Electric Fencing comes in 3 flavors: portable, semi-portable, and wire.. or permanent. Sheep are generally kept behind 5 to 7 strands if you're using wire. Electric fencing seems easier to install... posts which can be pushed into the ground for example... but the corners still need to be braced, and there is the issue of Ground Rods. Ground Rods are long poles which need to be pounded into the ground to create the negative pole. Long poles. Very long poles if you have lots of rocks to contend with. Almost every modern farm uses electric in one form or another, many use all three options on one small farm, starting out with a portable system, moving up to a semi-permanent, and graduating to set up with a perimeter fence done with 5-7 strand wire. We use Premier Fencing and chargers.

After you've secured your fencing, what else do you need?

Buckets: Water buckets are sold at feed stores which are made out of a heavy duty rubber. They don't crack, they don't break when frozen, and you can smash ice out of them by casting them down on concrete. You won't do the concrete any good, but the bucket will hold up!

Grain pans: We use hard plastic grain pans, again, sold at the feed store for less than $2.00, because we want the sheep to recognize the sound of grain rattling in the pan and come for the treat. You could use pans made out of the same rubber as your water buckets... but grain doesn't rattle in them!  You can also use old cottage cheese containers... but the plastic will wear and tear so you'll need to replace them now adn then.

Hoof Trimming Shears: Ours are simply rose shears by Fiskars. They are slightly smaller than norm, making them easier for women's hands to handle.

Hand Shearing Shears: We recommend Fiskars Soft Touch scissors. Yes, we know, hardly "authentic." However, one farm we sold our sheep to uses Fiskars softouch to hand shear up to 24 sheep and absolutely swears by them. These are not sheep shears, but scissors with a spring return, and a nice sharp blade. Either way, if you're keeping a half dozen sheep or less, hand shearing makes economic sense. If you're keeping more, hand shearing depends on your patience and hand strength. We have our sheep professionally shorn twice a year, and use the hand shears to clean up around the udder during lambing, or for a quick trim.  The Farm at Morrison Corner says "buy 2 pair (we buy 3 every 3 years)... they can be resharpened but it is incredibly convenient to simply be able to switch to a fresh set of scissors when a blade gets dull or loaded with lanolin."

A Tool Box: Something you can use to store and carry your "sheep stuff." This can be as elaborate as a box which doubles as a seat and is on rollers, to a hand carried plastic box, to a mud bucket with lid and storage trays. Whatever works for you.

A Trowel: for mixing kelp and vitamin blends and dosing them out.

2 Buckets with lids: for storing kelp powder and salt. A mud bucket with lid will store a bag of salt, or half (25 pounds) a bag of kelp.

Salt/Kelp feeders: If these are outside, they'll need a cover to keep the rain off. We've seen them made from old wheel wells, old tires, and store bought. Whatever floats your boat and the sheep will use.

Hay Feeders: Again, how elaborate your set up is will be determined by the amount of time you have to invest in building feeders, how much you mind wasted hay, and where you need to place those feeders. Metal feeders are sold at most feed supply stores, home made feeders can be made out of pallets, lumber, Premier's stock panels, there are some very creative feeders out there!  The USDA has a pamphlet on raising a backyard flock of sheep with an octagonal feeder which has been a standard on small farms for years... it works.  It doesn't work well... but it works. Whatever method you decide to use, the hay should be up off the ground, preferably the sheep should not be able to get into the feeder, and they shouldn't be able to drag the hay out of the feeder and strew it around on the ground. In a perfect world the feeder wouldn't deposit large amounts of hay and chaff into their neck wool either.

Pitch Fork: nothing like it for moving soiled bedding if you don't let it matt down too deeply.
Wheelbarrow: see above, soiled bedding!

Panels for lambing jugs or pens: Again, this can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. Premier, and no doubt your local feed store, sells 4', 6' and 8' panels which can be hooked together to make nice little lamb jugs. You can make your own frames with hinges. Or you can build pens right into your shelter. But if you're lambing you'll want one 6 x 4' space for every 4 ewes, erring on the high side if you have a small number of ewes.

Extras are the things which can make your life easier and more enjoyable... but you don't have to have them:

A Stand: Home constructed, bought on ebay, or bought at your local farm store, stands lift the sheep up so you don't have to bend over, secure the sheep by the head, and allow you to work on the sheep easily. Stands vary, but your stand will have either a head restraint which keeps the head locked upright or a V shaped channel where the head pops through and a locking mechanism drops down to keep the head from popping back out. In the former, sheep have to just stand. In the latter, they can munch grain while you trim tootsies.

Hay Hooks: Old fashioned hooks with handles which require some skill to use effectively, but once mastered allow you to fling a bale of hay a considerable distance, impressing friends, spouses, and sheep.

Drenching Gun: A small drenching gun (for administering oral medicines) is available through Pipestone Vet (the Sharpvet Dose Syringe), the larger ones are easy to find.

Halters and Leads: One of our farms recently made the mistake of buying the most inexpensive halter on the market, figuring they weren't sure if they'd use it anyway so why invest a lot of money in it? Well, the cheap halter is made out of a stiff, abrasive, nylon, which won't conform to the sheep's head and is so rough it cuts. So they definitely won't be using it! Halters can be used to restrain a sheep, instead of a stand, walk a sheep (useful for moving them from here to there), and show sheep. But you need to buy a decent one. Preferably leather or a soft flat woven nylon. Don't get cheap here or you'll simply end up throwing it away.

A Scale: For weighing lambs and weighing fleece. Again, we've seen a wide variety of scales used, from milk room scales to vegetable scales usually seen in supermarkets, to baby scales, to the tried and true Weigh Self, Hoist Sheep and Weigh Again, Do Math method. Whatever works for you! But we have had a new farm call in a panic because their twins were "tiny." Not having a scale meant they were measuring the sheep ("well.. they're about 12" by 14" by...") which really doesn't mean much! As it turned out, they had a nice healthy set of twins, but they were comparing them to the two single lambs they'd delivered the week before. Without scales you're guestimating doses for lambs and can't measure weight gain to see if you really do have an issue, or are just imagining things. Can you live without scales? Sure, but they're nice to have.

Ok... done shopping for equipment? Then go look at the lamb lists!