The holiday is over!

Well it really never was a holiday with farm animals I guess. It was a good holiday season. Our boys got some new toys a bag of grain and a fairly fresh cut batch of hay. They do not complain much that is for sure.

The snow has not seemed to bother them to much except for the waste pile. They do not seem to like that white stuff on the ground so they have taken to using the barn which I am not very happy about at all. We are doing our best to clean it out a couple times a day and keep down fresh straw but it's a real struggle.

I have also found that I made a bit of a judgement call error when putting in gates. I put them together perfectly and very well cut to fit but this turns out to be a problem when the weather changes. The front gate is now hard to open and shut right due to snow and the inner gates are not opening all the way due to changing in the ground shape or possibly wood swell. Nothing that can't be fixed.

Our good news is that we've had a couple little breaks and might be able to add a couple boys this year. I hope to purchase the much needed equipment to add gutters to the barn as well as some new ground tiles. We also well be adding another new fenced pen and internal pen this year. We will likely talk about how to go about this so we like it though. My original thoughts are not postively going to stay the same after a year of working with it as we have it.

Alpaca life style is more than just a phrase.

From working on things this past weekend I have found that the term "Alpaca Life Style" is truely something that is more just just a catchy saying. It has to do with the hours it will take to do everything related to alpacas. We are a small farm with only 3 animals at this time. As we keep churning along with working and learning it is easy to see how people with dozens of alpacas end up with a real life changing investment. Feeding, cleaning up, caring for and processing each have requirements that need to be met.

Anyway, a quick bit on last weekends skirting proces... It was a good weekend as we were able to skirt 2 show blankets as well as all our second cuts. The thirds still need skirted but we will have to take some time to do that as well as cleaning it. Cleaning it ourselves will be another new part of the process. We plan on making felt items.

As far as yarn creation or other processing. Our seconds alone are not enough to ship off for processing so we will package them up for next year. We'll be able to combine the new blankets, the show blankets from this year as well as next years seconds for processing. At that point we'll get to learn about that part of things.

Supplies are the word of the day.

Who would have thought you'd need so many new things with the addition of 3 animals. We have bought and added several new things to what we own already and that is just a start.

Some of the supplies are odd too, or at least to non-livestock owners. I had to get flat back buckets and rubber feeding bowls. I have never needed anything like either before in my life. Oh and do not get me started on needles and meds for the alpacas! I never knew that you had to determine so many different things such as the needle gauge and length and if the syringe should be locking or slip!

Anyway, fun things for sure. We should be getting close to having one side of the barn really done any time now. Now it's on to phase 2 of the temporary site. With any luck, ground breaking for a new barn, built with our alpacas in mind starts next spring!