Mobile Shade Pasture Plans

Mobile Shade Pasture Plans In pasture-based farming, shade for livestock is more than a comfort feature; it’s part of an overall management strategy. Polyface Inc. has developed its own mobile shade trailer, offering a practical answer to a long-standing question: how do we protect animals from summer heat without sacrificing pasture performance? Permanent shade trees create trade-offs. “In the summer, livestock need shade, but we don’t want to lose all the manure in the trees; we want it in the pasture where it can do some good. It’s the obvious natural adjunct to pasturing livestock,” says Polyface owner Joel Salatin. Trees also interfere with haying and other uses of open pasture. Portable shade offers more practical, usable options, allowing farmers to decide where animals will graze and rest, where manure and urine are deposited, and how the land remains productive. A reduction in nitrogen evaporation is an additional benefit. The Polyface mobile livestock shade trailer is straightforward, with a lightweight V-truss frame mounted on trailer or mobile-home axles. It’s typically 16 to 30 ft long and about 7 ft high, designed to accommodate a cow’s height. The roof covering is 70% to 80% nursery shade cloth. “The beauty of the shade cloth is that since it’s permeable, heavy winds go through it and only ripple the fabric,” Salatin says. “The shade cloth can come off in a minute, and all the purlins can be popped up out of the slots and bungee-strapped to the hitch tongue, so you can travel down the road at 50 mph if needed.” The unit’s compact size can shelter roughly 400 turkeys, 50 hogs, 20 cows, 800 chickens, dozens of sheep and even ducks, making it useful for hobby farms and serious pasture-based enterprises alike. For turkeys, cross pieces can be installed in the V truss to create sleeping roosts. Because it’s lightweight, the trailer can be easily towed with a 4-wheeler to move animals through pastures and paddocks. Rather than manufacturing the mobile shade trailers commercially, Polyface sells the designs, along with those for many other useful farm innovations, in a build-it-yourself plan book that includes drawings and blueprints, reflecting a philosophy rooted in farmer independence rather than factory production. The 568-page book is priced at $90. Salatin estimates the cost of building a mobile shade trailer at roughly $1,000 for parts and materials, not including labor. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Polyface, Inc., 43 Pure Meadows Ln., Swoope, Va. 24479 (ph 540-885-3590; polyfacefarm@gmail.com; www.polyfacefarm.com).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.