life... on the farm: Winter ~ poop

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Winter ~ poop

I've taken different approaches to winter poop scooping over the years. The problem with winter poop is that it freezes to the ground. In an effort to get it all cleaned up, there have been times I was hacking at the piles to break it free. This took a lot of time and energy, with the end result of big ditches in the ground that filled with water the second there was a thaw. This made the most horrible poop soup. I decided there had to be a better way.

Last year I started to just rake up the loose poop on top, and leave anything frozen. The poop pile ends up being the same height as the snow. No more ditches and the horrible poop soup. The down side is that when there is a thaw, and the snow melts, so does the poop piles. Then I have a ton to scoop up. I was worried I would dread the days there as a thaw. But as it turns out, when the weather is nicer I like to be outside and usually don't mind being out there longer to complete this chore.

The part I don't like is hauling the poop in the wheel barrow through the snow all the way to the compost pile in the woods:

2 comments:

Linda said...: I think you need a poop sled.; January 13, 2011 at 11:24 PM
Kathryn Ray said...: We do about the same thing. We scoop up what we can and leave the frozen stuff. Fortunately we get many thaws during the winter so it's usually not frozen to the ground for too long.; January 16, 2011 at 7:59 PM

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The Adventure of a Lifetime

Our farming adventure began with the purchase of 3 alpacas in the fall of 2007. This eventually grew to an alpaca farm that birthed 23 cria. While we averaged 20 alpacas on a farm at any given time, we hit a peek of over 30 alpacas. We were involved in every aspect of alpaca farming: from breeding decisions, birthing, to attending alpaca shows, and shearing our own alpacas along with making product from their luscious fiber (hand spinning yarn and knitting product). We participated in 24 alpaca shows, and became very involved in the alpaca community.

In 2013 we added hair sheep to our farm.

Throughout this process we continued to tweak and revise our business plan. Our business plan evolved over time, and in 2013 it became clear that our goal was to raise grass fed animals for human consumption. While the initial plan was for this to go along side of alpaca farming, we slowly came to the conclusion our adventure was going to take us somewhere else.

In 2013 we began to sell off our alpaca herd to begin our new adventure with grass fed sheep and cattle.

Our adventure is still unfolding, so please, join us in our adventure of a lifetime as our journey unfolds.