Prepare a Small Alpaca Farm
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First thing, for any farm of ANY size, you gotta have a truck, preferably an Island Car (beater pickup) type vehicle like this one. |
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Get your power lines marked so you'll know where its safe and not safe to put the fence. |
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Try NOT to have your wood pile right where the barn is going to go :( |
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Put in the stakes, then stretch some string for your post marks. We're going with a barn footprint of 12x30 feet. |
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...then change your mind and point the shelter another way. |
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When you start the digging, always have a cute puppy to help. |
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OOPS! don't forget to remove old trees BEFORE building! |
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Cover your holes, even though the rain finds its way in anyway. Actually, we hit the water table at 2 feet! |
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Burn up a bunch of brush, if you can get it to burn. |
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Hmm.... it may take a while. |
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...a long while |
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Then buy some $1300 worth of framing wood, and have it delivered. |
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Cover the wood cause you KNOW it will rain again tomorrow. This is the Pacific NorthWet. |
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After some tiring digging of 8 holes, start to set and cement your poles. Don't forget to get really dirty. It adds to the experience... |
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Go visit your animals. Hey! This is my spot! |
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Vet does a little backend checking, which is audibly NOT appreciated by the recipient. |
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Back at the barn...slap on a roof ($750 metal, wide rib) and sides just before another rain comes. Leave a 10 foot space for a barn door in the back. See all barn parts here. |
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Put up some siding and paint. |
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Going for the board and batton look...but the cedar boards were just too much money, so using t1-11 plywood. |
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Figure out how to get this door to work. |
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Brace the back of the door. It's pretty heavy! |
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Yeah, this should be enough space for a few animals. We can add in any of three directions if need be. The front fascia is heavy so we can built right onto it. |
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Need to finish off the front battons, then its time to fill the barn! |
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These poles are FLAT on the bottom. They simply pound the things into the ground! |
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Row of poles ready for the fencing. |
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Fence it up! Looking good. Now we have to work on the pasture grass. |
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Decided we liked these gates. They're called "Magnum" by Behlen and are both reasonably priced and very functional. Initially designed as dog kennels, they seemed a good choice to keep dogs OUT!
That's it for early prep. See the Virtual Visit and other galler y collections for pics of how it all turned out. |