Indoor Sheep Farming at Hejo Farms in Canada
8 April 2026
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By Aimee Johnston
In Coaldale, Alberta, the seasons don’t just change, they swing. One week can bring deep winter cold; another can feel like peak summer. For Luuk Bennan and the family team at Hejo Farms, building a system that keeps animals comfortable and the work predictable meant rethinking how handling gets done. Here’s how their move into indoor sheep farming, supported by a Racewell Sheep Handler, is helping them run a more consistent operation and how they have scaled up their sheep farm in Canada.
Customer snapshot
- Farm: Hejo Farms (family-run)
- Location: Coaldale, Alberta, Canada
- Scale: 4,000 ewes
- Production model: Short breeding cycle (lambing every 8 months)
- Target output: 9,000 finished lambs/year (minimum)
- Facility: Fully indoor system (animals housed inside from start to finish)
Why indoor sheep farming matters in Alberta
Southern Alberta can see winter temperatures down to about -35°C and summer highs around 35°C. Add dry conditions and unreliable rainfall, and timing outdoor tasks becomes a constant negotiation with the forecast. By housing sheep inside from start to finish, Hejo Farms reduces weather stress on animals and makes key tasks like weighing, drafting, and scanning possible even when it’s raining, bitterly cold, or blowing into a blizzard.
The challenge: labor-heavy handling limited growth
Before the upgrade, routine weighing could consume half a day with five to six people. Setting gear up and packing it away added more time, turning an essential task into one of those jobs that nobody looks forward to. As the farm looked ahead, the question became simple: was growth worth it if handling kept stealing hours and energy from everything else?
The solution: Racewell Sheep Handler
When Hejo Farms built their new facility, they designed it to work indoors year-round and chose to integrate a Racewell HD6 Sheep Handler that can automatically weigh and draft sheep 6 ways. With the handler permanently set up inside the barn, the team can run sheep through when it suits the farm, not when the weather cooperates. Weighing shifted from a heavy, labor-intensive event to an easy job that can fit into a normal day.
Luuk points to six-way drafting as a major advantage. Lambs can be weighed and drafted in one pass, and because the farm doesn’t castrate males, keeping males and females separated stays straightforward. The same drafting flexibility carries into ewe management: creating groups at weaning, separating thinner ewes from bigger ewes, pulling culls, and sorting ewes during pregnancy scanning by size and strength. For Luuk, it’s part performance and part responsibility, setting animals up so each ewe has the best chance to carry and raise a lamb well.
Results: faster throughput, lower stress, and a platform for growth
- High-capacity flow: The farm reports moving about 500 sheep/hour through the handler on larger animals.
- Pregnancy scanning throughput: About 150–160 ewes/hour can be ultrasounded and sorted.
- Lower-stress handling: Sheep get used to the system, the handler is quiet and gentle on sheep so they flow better and you avoid pile-ups common with other systems.
- Labor savings: Weighing shifted from an afternoon with 5–6 people to a routine job that fits into the day.
- All-weather reliability: Because the workflow is indoors, handling can continue during rain, cold, and blizzard conditions, key for year-round sheep farming in Canada.
“It’s been a great asset to the farm. I don’t know what we’d do without it.” — Luuk Brennan, Hejo Farms
Te Pari Macrostock Scale for easy data collection
Like most upgrades, the new scale head came with a short learning curve, but it didn’t take long for the team to feel confident. Luuk says that once you sit down with it for a few minutes, the layout is clear, the labels make sense, and support has been strong whenever they’ve needed a hand.
The Te Pari Macrostock scale system is the electronic weighing and data “brain” connected to the handler. As sheep step onto the platform, it captures weights and displays the information in real time, helping the operator make consistent decisions while animals keep flowing. In an indoor setup like Hejo Farms’, it becomes a practical day-to-day tool for weighing sessions and sorting routines, without turning handling into a complicated tech project.
Building a better future for indoor sheep farming
For Hejo Farms, indoor sheep farming is about control, consistency, and animal care. Housing sheep inside from start to finish reduces the impact of Alberta’s extremes, while a reliable sheep handling and drafting system helps the team focus energy on higher-value work, like monitoring health and treating animals when needed.
Today, the farm runs 4,000 ewes on an accelerated lambing program (about every eight months), with a minimum target of roughly 9,000 finished lambs per year. With indoor facilities and efficient handling in place, the operation is set up to keep cycles running smoothly and make day-to-day management more predictable, an important advantage for scalable sheep farming in Canada.
