Vermont Homestead Products & Services

Simple, sustainable livestock panels & structures for the homesteader

Our hand-made, modular livestock shelters, structures, and panels are durable, lightweight and easy to assemble and use. These modular structures are built using a combination of purchased wood products (from a local mill where feasible) and wood milled from the trees on our land. This low-cost sustainable method of construction has saved us lots of money and is very pleasing to the eye.

As homesteaders, we value our rural lifestyle and are intrigued by the ingenuity of farming in a way that existed before the days of heavy machinery, pesticides, chemicals, and industrial equipment.

Homestead farmers have a tradition of being creative and frugal. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars on heavy metal panels or pressure treated wood (loaded with toxic chemicals), let's us build your small livestock structures, using our wood or wood from your land. This old fashioned, low maintenance method will save you money. Not only are many of these items functional, but they are creative works of art as well!

Exterior Newer wood shows panels added one year later

Inside set up for lambing

Modular, Moveable Livestock Shelter

This livestock shelter is built using a panel system for all walls and the roof. Flooring is also removable and optional. The whole system maybe disassembled and moved.The two structures sit facing each other with a roof overlap to provide maximum space for animals.The roof is constructed of Ondura roof panels which are extremely durable to the Vermont winter with its heavy snowfall and high winds.

The shelter photographed here houses 25 sheep during winter months. Additional wall units will be added to each side with gated panels (shown below) to separate out lambing ewes in the spring.

This is a vertatile and creative option for the small homesteader who has limited access to structures. It's mobility limits tax liabilities as well!

Modular Panels Outside

Inside before panels added

Chick Brooder

This chick brooder houses up to 25-30 chicks comfortably. Opens at top for easy access. Top roof unit accommodates heat lamp to keep brooder at 95 degrees necessary to feather out your chicks. Light weight, portable and pleasing to the eye, it can be moved out on pasture/yard to finish out the birds as they grow. Side door has attachment for a pasture run. Weasel/predator proof.

Portable Chicken Coop-Mobile with Easy Access Nesting Boxes

Chicken tractor has nesting boxes, roosts made from real tree limbs, and built-in manure trays for easy cleaning. Tractor can be pasture rotated by using the 2 wheeled cart. In the winter, the metal mesh door and openings can be be insulated with straw or wool and covered with wood for protection from the elements. Optional water can & feed trough.

Modular, Portable Rabbit Hutch-Mobile

These modular rabbit pens provide for easy access for feeding, watering, and cleaning and they offer protection from winter drafts and wetness. The modular hutch-mobile attaches to either a cage, normally used in winter, or to a run for three season foraging. This allows for maximum flexibility in the structure's use from season to season and including breeding.

The trays shown below the cages are for cleaning. Rabbit poop makes great compost. The creative homesteader finds many uses on her farm for items which might normally be thrown away. An old dog bowl makes a great rabbit pellet feeder and an old nursery tray is modified to make a hay feeder.

Hand-Made Gate

Made of local wood (picked up just a few feet from where the gate is located) and fitted with standard metal gate fittings and latches. Gate can be constructed to fit any size and shape opening (i.e. no more messing around with fences and posts to fit expensive machine fabricated gates). Built lovingly with mortise & tenon joint construction which has been used for thousands of years by woodworkers.May be built to custom sizes.

Hand-Made Panels

Modular panels are constructed lovingly with hand-carved mortise & tenon joints and made of local wood (hand harvested from the property they sit on). These panels can be used for livestock, gardens, pets, or whatever else you can think of (e.g. panels are used for a lambing-jug in photo to left). Modular system allows for panels to be opened or expanded as as you wish. May be made to custom sizes.

Raised Garden Vegetable Beds with Optional Manure Amendment

For the gardener..If you'd like, I can also provide a FREE manure amendment to mix with your soil for increased fertility. The manure amendment come from composting of Stark Hollow Farm's sheep, rabbits and chickens, who are raised naturally, on pasture and woodland lots, and without chemicals.

Lamb Creep Feeder Panel

Lambs need access to hay, grains, minerals and water not long after they are born. A creep feeder allows the lamb to pass through, but not the adult animals. This ensures lambs get adequate supplies without competition or being crushed by adult sheep. This creep feeder has removable and adjustable rods for fast growing lambs covered with PVC "roller" sleeves to allow continued easy lamb passage as lambs grow.

Portable Piglet House

This small homestead structure is designed for use on pasture or in woodland areas and is made using wood milled from our land. Designed to be portable for rotational foraging purposes of younger pigs, the structure is light weight. It is made of pine and the boards are assembled adirondack style. Additionally, there is no floor and the roof and sides are covered with a thin, light aluminum sheeting. One door running the full length of the house may be propped up to provide additional shade on hot pasture days. Filled with straw, this structure makes a cozy home for a couple of pasture raised pigs even on chilly spring or fall days. As pigs grow, a more durable structure would be required, but this is a great way to get them started.

Piglet Warming Box

This simple, useful structure is designed to keep newborn piglets warm and to offer them a place to get away from mama. Inexpensive, easy to build and completely portable.

OtherFarmAnimals/1011160_10151689180944586_1517611148_n.jpg

The "Round House" Winter Sheep Shelter

This is a custom design, created by Vanessa for winter sheltering of a 10 - 12 animal flock of sheep. The low roof line and berm style lay-in of this pole structure make this a cozy, wind free shelter. It is made from small trees taken off our land. The roof of this low impact round house is reciprocating, with a starting pole and each pole subsequently laid on top and tied with recycled baling twine. Once the center support is removed, the roof settles into itself supporting the poles. To strengthen it, we wove saplings around and through at various intervals. Ultimately, the sides could be cobbed and the roof canvased. Click on the photos below to see close up pictures.