Housing and environment in organic sheep farming, Postdoc

The principal objective of this project is to investigate how space allowance, flooring and access to outdoor yards affect the behaviour and welfare of sheep. Solid floor on the lying area is required for all existing organic sheep herds, whereas the dema nd for a total area of 1.5 m2 per ewe only is related to new buildings and from 1st January 2011 also in existing buildings. However, the majority of Norwegian sheep production are located in areas where straw and other suitable bedding material is limit ed, and the sheep are usually kept in fully slatted floor pens. The common space allowance in Norwegian sheep production is 0.70 to 0.90 m2 per ewe, which is nearly half of the demand in organic sheep farming. Hence, a majority of the around 500 Norwegian organic sheep farms will have to either reduce the number of sheep to nearly 50 % or increase the space allowance to 1.5 m2 per ewe by year 2011. The importance of the thermal conductivity of the floor for newborn lambs has to our knowledge not been inv estigated. Hence, it is necessary to conduct experiments to answer these questions. Basic information about the individual distances between ewes both while feeding and lying is necessary in order to determine adequate space allowance for sheep. Since she ep appear has a strong preference for lying next to a wall, providing extra walls in the pen may increase the use of lying area. An alternative to increase the space allowance in the pens is to provide access to an outdoor yard, but then information about the sheeps use of outside yards and how to design such yards has to be investigated.