llama Grove Groove

Well, everyone is gone now. We will miss everyone who went to live with other farms permanently. The cows were really lovable and the llama was probably the most beautiful llama we’ve ever seen. He quite a personality on top of that. We’d really been looking forward to training him for hikes.

Brody, the horse is staying at Gaston Irish Sporthorses. He will remain there and be trained by the extremely competent trainer until someone comes to take him to another home, or until we build a dry barn. Whichever comes first. He’s such a big love that we know he’ll be in good hands either way.

On the up side, we’re in the middle of winter and getting 6 to 8 eggs a day from the chickens! This is great news. The weather has been rainy, but nice and warm for the time of year. The big question is without llamas and alpacas, what will we do for large-ish scale garden composting?

As the rain continues, so does the exodus from the soggy barn. We’re very sorry to see them go, but without proper drainage, the barn is simply too wet for our animals to spend the winter. The French drain didn’t hold under the weight of the cows and horse.

Cinnamon, our juvenile milk cow, has found a new home where we hope she will be very happy. She is a sweetie who loves having her cheeks scratched and really only has one motivation in life: a little treat.

Leif the guard llama is auditioning for a 4-H family this weekend. We expect that he will probably find a new home Saturday.

Brody the horse is looking for a new home as well. He’s going to go stay with our friends and horse trainer to be keep company with other horses for a while. We’ll bring him back when we are able to do so or he will find some family looking for a wonderful Georgian Grande pinto who also have time to train him.

The chicken stall is still dry, so they will be able to stay safe and dry. What’s  a life without our chickens?

It’s hard to see, but the insanely wet and cold weather we’ve had gave us our first hail this week. Unfortunately we’ve been getting over an inch of rain each each day.

The really sad thing about this is that our barn flooded again! Horses and cows are too heavy for french drains.

Because of this and our lack of time, we gave up our beef cow. He’ll have a gret time with the cows in the new pasture he’s going to live in, well, for a while. He is a Jersey Angus cross steer, so he’s not really slated for a long life.

This was one hard weekend. Ray took every gate off their posts and re-did their fittings to keep the horse from pulling the gates off their hinges. He also had to fix three stall door closures because the horse had been having a good time pulling on them to get at grain.

That and a few minor barn changes got us a far way to ready for winter. It looks like all that’s left is stall bedding material purchases and we’ll be ready for the snow.

In addition to all this work, Ray worked on the horses hooves and pulled out the chainsaw to take care of branches that were overhanging driveways and fences.  There was a fence post shorting out the electric fence, allowing the llama and one of the cows to repeatedly escape that needed fixed as well. The entire outer perimeter was walked just to check for shorts as well.

Behold the cleaned up hay area. There are bins below with feed, hay above and filling the farthest stall. We thank Kieth and Juliet very much for manning the hay elevator for us. It was kind of them in the extreme.

Everyone was womred, since we had frost a few day s last week. Today was over 100, though. What’s up with that?

With the start of our annual winter fear fest, we started pulling down the last of the hay from on top of the barn. It was there that we discovered what a fine and glossy-coated herd of mice we’ve raised. These were the fattest and healthiest mice you can imagine. In fact, they were living happily in our hay and eating our hormone-free, antibiotic-free feed. They opened several bags that we’d hoped would keep the cows over the winter, and a few bags of llama and general live stock feed. There was one bag that was eaten down to 1/2 of it’s original 50 pounds. Obviously we’d become lax since we’ve never had a mouse infestation of this size before. The answer is larger feed bins and barn cats, I’m afraid. The llama will stomp mice if he can see them, but he can’t reach the rafters.

Back in the kitchen we did a pre-winter cleaning and made gallons and gallons of no-fry re-fried beans. That’ll keep us from getting too lazy and eating in town. Also, there were 7 jars of dill pickles (we always give so many away) and some really great pure made.

The weather has been having fun with us lately. How nice and sunny! How it snowed last night! And rained the day before, and was really great for two days before that.

Work must go on, though. Today is the day we’d been dreading: cleaning day. Sure it happens all the time, but the drainage is sucking the wheelbarrow into the earth. Help, help!

Things are looking good. There are fewer runny noses and more sunlight. Let’s hear it for Spring! And we’re back on track to make the outdoors our own again.

We’ll miss the black gold the alpacas and llamas provided, but there is just as much manuer on the pile as there ever wa.

Though we said we’d try the cornish cross broilers, a little research proved that these are not the chickens for us. Any chicken that has to have it’s food intake monitored is not the right chick for a free-range, calf-pasture sharing bird. The side effects for not watching the feed ranged from the birds not being able to stand due to the weight of their breasts, to heart failure and a noted stupidity of the breed. So we’ll stick with our dual purpose layers and see how the year goes.

Cinnamon the cow has taken very well to her llama overloards. The llama ladies have shown a maternal side that had previously only been glimpsed when Mariah was indulgent towards alpaca cria. Now even tomboy pack llama Ursula is allowing the calf to try to suckle and none of the camelids spit at her. The horse is still routinely covered in spit, but he seems to ask for it. He’s indulgent in his own way, too. Yuri the Suri was spotted standing on his hind legs to eat from the horse’s feed dish, sharing breakfast.

Project for the weekend: Set up a chick area in the milk stall, maybe get the cupboards up in the feed area. Take time off if the weather is terrible. Get the fir trees trimmed back from stairs and garden areas if the weather is fine. Oh, and teach the darn horse some manners. He’s too smart for his own good.

5×2.5×4.5 Behelen Country hay feeder/bunk(picutred left)

2.5×1.5×1 hay feeder

 Also, the not-so-barn-cat found a home. thanks!

The chickens have their own stall in the barn, one that opens to the near field. The near field used to be for female alpacas, but the Chickens are very happy with it.

This little girl was given to us to be a barn cat. After owning her for a full day, we believe that she’s not even an outside cat. She’s very affectionate and though she’s never seen the house, this is where she wants to be. It would be nice if she’d spend some time in the barn. Nicer if she’d get some of the mice.

Arun finished the horse stall and the milking stall has its main door on and an outer wall on top of the inner wall. This is great!

We lost poor Blackfoot, the last of our named chickens. The poor old girl was with us from our last house, and this winter was very hard for her. We’ll miss you, Blackfoot. The remaining chickens are free ranging-it while the big animals take over the far fields to stretch their legs after the long rainy/snowy month behind us.

The barn continues, even as the snow does. We have three llamas, two alpacas, seven chickens and a horse sharing this space.  This week, we’ll put doors on the stalls and work out a schedule for the animals. The changes are amazing.

We had another day with snow, but also sunshine. Fortunately, our power came back online this morning. Not everyone is so lucky. We keep the snow off our mailbox, but it’s  been a few weeks since we’ve had waste disposal service. It’s a good practice not to rely on the garbage me, anyway.

What do you do when the sun is shining and there’s no power? innoculations, of course. The camelids are a little weary of us this morning, but they never remember the day before when there is food to eat today. Llamas are not so quick to forget.

Arun will work to get the barn completed as quickly as possible today. It’s not going to be too much longer before the snow is gone and so is our free pass to work on home projects rather than the work outside the house. Not only that, the snow is very nice to look at.

There were about 8 inches more snow last night.  It doesn’t look like we’ll be getting out today. Even the llamas don’t want to come out.

Read more…