Time spent on inactive behaviours (loafing, resting and sleeping) by 100 stall-fed sheep was recorded on three occasions for 24 consecutive hours. Bout length and inter-bout length for each inactive behaviour were recorded. Data related to behaviour duration, bout duration and inter-bout duration were subjected to Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance by ranks to determine differences between the seven categories of sheep, viz. lamb (12), young (10), hogget (24), ram (12), pregnant ewe (12), lactating ewe (10), and non-pregnant ewe (20). The Wilcoxon signed ranked test was used to study the significance of differences between day-time (part of the day with natural light, 06.01–18.00 h) and night-time (time of darkness, 18.01–06.00 h). Loafing (375 min per day) was the most frequent form of inactive behaviour followed by resting (252 min per day) and sleeping (56 min per day). Compared to rams, lambs took more time ( P<0.05) for all three forms of inactive behaviour except loafing time during day-time. Diurnal variation ( P<0.05) was observed for loafing time in hogget and resting time in non-pregnant ewes. Bout length of loafing, resting and sleeping had durations of 9, 12 and 12 min, respectively, at day-time and 9, 13 and 15 min, respectively, at night-time. The inter-bout length during day-time and night-time was 23 and 29 min, respectively, for loafing; 52 and 53 min, respectively, for resting and 154 and 220 min, respectively, for sleeping. For the three inactive behaviours, short duration bout length (<16 min) was predominant; about 90% of total bouts of each inactive behaviour had duration of <30 min. Resurgence of resting activity occurred either before 15 min or after 30 min of completion of the preceding bout. Two-thirds of total inter-bout lengths for loafing and sleeping activity had durations of <16 and >30 min, respectively. Knowledge on the inactive behaviour will help to develop management practices for rearing sheep under stall-fed conditions.