Friday, October 5, 2007

updates: the barn

The barn has had some changes. The ground in the barn was dirt, but it was very low in some spots, due to it's previous occupant, a horse. We wanted to level it out, plus we did not like having a dirt floor. Alpacas do lay down (more so than horses). And since we do want the fiber to turn into yarn, I'd like the aim to make things as clean as we can get it. So we had sand delivered to level the ground out.
This picture shows the outside of the barn. You can see the sand on the bottom, that's how much we had to raise the ground there.

After the sand, we put a layer of ground lime stone. It's more expensive than crushed concrete but not by that much, and the lime stone has the added benefit of neutralizing odors. We considered having concrete poured but the cost was a lot more. Plus we've heard some farmers who prefer the limestone because the animal pee can pass through it and drain into the ground. We put a 4 inch layer of limestone down, then sprayed it with water, filled in the help level it. J rented a tapper to push the limestone down even more. This has made it very hard and almost like concrete.This is the back of the barn where we made a ramp with the sand then limestone.



In the inside of the barn, J put up feeders. This is about 1/4 of the barn, where the alpacas will be housed and can eat.

J put pallets here where we will stack the hay and other animal food.





And this is the water spout.

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