Alpacamundo Monday: Improving Barn Access

Over the summer, we removed most of the dead and mostly-dead trees from our new property.

One in particular was near the door to the Alpaca Barn.

I still need to remove the stump, but having this tree gone improves access to the barn for our Hay Supplier.

I had been told by the previous owner that the barn could store 150 bales.  So I ordered 147 bales last winter, which did not leave the aisle accessible.

  

So this fall, we also removed one of the cabinets the previous owner had installed.  The first being just inside, so it prevented the door from being fully opened, which made it difficult to bring in hay bales.

Hay Delivery occurred over the weekend and my Hay Supplier agreed that access was much easier this time.

After picking up the spilled hay near the entrance, we have a full barn (126 bales) and an accessible aisle.

Alpacamundo Monday: Hay Delivery Day

Hay Delivery Day is one of the best days of the year.

We've been getting hay from our current Hay Farmer for the last few years.

He grows a high quality hay, bales in small squares, delivers, stacks, and arrives at the pre-arranged time... and if that's not enough, he checks the bales as they are being offloaded and removes any that don't meet his standards of quality.

The alpaca are always excited for Hay Delivery Day.  This year, I noticed the dogs were excited too.

Rather than putting up a defense, it was more a happiness to see a friend.  I'm sure my body language contributed to the welcome, but also the fact that the barn was set up and ready for his arrival with the doors left wide open.

Hay used to be my biggest worry.

Thanks to my Hay Farmer, it's no longer a stresser.

We are set until next fall.

Alpacamundo Monday: Hay Delivery

Generally my biggest concern with owning livestock is hay.

Our place is not big enough, nor do we own the equipment to grow and bale our own at a reasonable cost.  So while we do let our alpaca graze the field in the summer, we buy most of their forage.

A couple of years ago I connected with a local farmer that produces a high-quality hay, that is suitable for alpaca, at a fair price.

I'm grateful that he is able to deliver small bales (~65-lbs each) multiple times a year.

The small bales are more expensive for him to produce, but they are easier for us to handle.  He brings the hay on a flat-bed trailer and then stacks it in our barn... This is a huge benefit for us.

I'm happy to say that hay is less of a concern than it used to be.  This load should last into May.

Alpacamundo Monday: Hay Day

Hay Delivery Day is one of my favorites.  The alpacas and dogs come up to their fence when the hay arrives.

The neighbor's cows followed me up and down our shared fence trying to convince me to give them some too.  But don't worry, they have plenty of their own hay to eat.

I just love the smell of fresh hay in the barn.

Hay Delivery - June 2013

The good news is that we finally got hay delivered last weekend.

The bad news is that the supply is at the end of the last 2012 cutting, so I'll be buying again in August.

The good news is that the first cutting has started, so hopefully we will see the prices return to normal.  Fingers crossed for a plentiful harvest this year.

Sliding Block Puzzel

It's a bit of a sliding block puzzle around here right now.

I have a small barn. Honestly, "barn" is a generous term. It's more like a loafing shed with doors, but small is correct. We store hay and feed in the barn. We shear in the barn. We cannot do both very well at the same time.

One bay is for hay, one bay is for alfalfa and the last bay is for feed and other supplies. As we approach shearing day everything gets moved into the hay bay because we shear in the alfalfa bay.

So it's a bit of a game to ensure that we don't have too much on hand and that we don't run out.

Generally we shear the last weekend in April, but this year my regular helpers were unavailable and everyone else I asked was also busy that weekend, so we rescheduled for next weekend.

The good news is that I shear our alpacas so I'm not tied to a traveling crew's schedule that has been booked since January. The bad news is that I'm dependent on my friends being able (and willing) to help.

I also have local shearing clients which means my available weekends were also limited, but fortunately, I have some wonderful friends who will be helping us out next weekend... three weeks later than originally planned.

It turned out to be a blessing in that we got a huge amount of snow and a hard freeze of +11F a few days after the original planned shearing day... both of which would have been difficult with 16 freshly nekkid alpacas.

The scary part is that I planned our hay purchases for shearing day at the end of April and not the middle of May.

I have ~5 weeks of alfalfa still in stock, so we're good there. The part that's giving me heartburn is that I have only about 8 days of hay left and we are shearing in 8 days.

It doesn't make sense to have hay delivered this week because I won't have a place to shear if I take on a whole load. So I'm resigning myself to a few trips to the feed store over the next few days to bridge us until I can schedule a delivery for after shearing day.

I look forward to having a proper barn and hay storage one day and perhaps even our own hay field too.

Happy Spring!  :-)

Today

The first two of our expected cria are due on October 2nd.  Which had me realize today that we will officially be on cria watch in a month.

It also means that we're about two months away from the first snow and the end of our growing season.

Which means we're about two months away from learning if my bet on the hay prices was good or bad.

I'm feeling optimistic about this coming winter.  Much like I always feel about the first signs of spring.  But this winter I am looking forward to lots of snow and fully-frozen lakes and the end of a terrible fire season.

Hay

As a farmer there are a lot of things I think about, but there is only one thing I really worry about.

90-lb grass hay bales on the left, 65-lb alfalfa bales on the right

Being a commodity, the price of hay is very sensitive to supply and demand.  So, with the hot, dry summer we've been having, the hay harvest has suffered and the price has gone up.

A lot.

My preference is to work with the 60-65 pound, small-square-bales.  These are easy to move and come pre-rationed... one flake = one alpaca per day.  But these cost more for the farmer to produce.

Last year I bought the larger 90-100 pound, bigger-small-square-bales.  These are a little less expensive for the farmer to produce and still relatively easy to move around.  But honestly it means I am dragging them.  90-100 pounds is too much for me to lift.  The ration is still easy to figure out though... two flakes = three alpacas per day.

This year we had been talking with a couple of other farms about going in together on a full truck-load.  One of these friends found a local source of hay/alfalfa mix at a reasonable price.

I prefer to have my grass hay and alfalfa separate because it give more flexibility for meeting feeding requirements.  Alfalfa is generally too high in protein to give to non-lactating or pregnant alpacas, but sometimes you have to take what you can find.

What we found were 800-lb large-square-bales (4 ft x 4 ft x 8 ft) and we do not have a tractor or skid-steer to move them.

We figured we would need 14 of these to cover the year.  Based on the rough dimensions I determined they should fit in our barn and asked our neighbor if he could unload the truck with his Bobcat.  The only question being whether his Bobcat was small enough to go through our barn door... which is only 7.5 feet high.

The answer was yes.  So we went to place the order.

The hay was no longer available.

Our friend had a line on another source of the 800-lb large-square-bales hay/alfalfa mix that was much more expensive.

I did a little math and decided that I could get the smaller bales of straight hay and straight alfalfa for about the same price from the feed store.

They came out on Friday.

In hopes that more rain will come and that the hay prices will drop before winter, we only bought a 6-month supply.  I hope this bet pays off.  Otherwise we'll be paying a lot more to bring us through the winter.

In the meantime, having fresh cut hay in the barn smells oh so good. :-)

The Hay has been Put Up

There are two events that cause me to do a deep clean on my barn...  Shearing Day and Hay Delivery Day.

We keep the barn pretty well swept and organized, but when it comes to these two events, the barn gets re-organized and completely swept out.  Yesterday was no different.

I decided when I had to buy hay in April that from now on I would plan to buy a year's supply in August/September.  This is the time when the quality and prices are best.  It's good to know that I can buy hay in the winter if the need arises, but it's always better to get what you want when it's at it's peak.

I was down to two bales of hay and less than one bale of alfalfa... about a week's supply.  So I was thrilled that the Feed Store was able to deliver on Friday.

The nice boys brought their fully-loaded flat-bed and stacked it all for us.  It took them only about an hour to unload and stack 122 big-small bales (90 lbs each) of Timothy Grass and 50 small bales (65 lbs each) of Alfalfa.

The girls were happy to see there was plenty of food available for the coming winter.

Of course I am happy too.  A fully-stocked barn makes for a happy farmer.  :-)

We're Good 'til Fall

We were down to about two weeks of hay.

Now we should be good until August-ish.

Counting

As the hay stack gets smaller, I find myself counting bales more often.  Continually re-figuring out how long until we need to buy more and considering whether we bought appropriately last time.

I don't really worry about the feed and minerals too much.  We use Ranch-Way which is made in Fort Collins just a few miles away.  So we have very easy access to the feed.  But the hay and alfalfa, I think about.  A lot.

Today we have 39 bales of hay and 10 bales of alfalfa. At a half-bale of hay per day and one bale of alfalfa per week, it should keep everyone well fed until mid-April-ish.

That means the hay we bought is lasting about as planned.  However, now that I'm thinking about the idea of buying hay in April, I suspect I should buy enough to bridge us to August-ish then buy for a year at a time.

Miss Kitty found the Barn

Miss Kitty finally made her way out to the barn this weekend.

She hasn't been out since before the snow and alpacas.  She's not too sure about the alpacas yet, and there's a lot of new things in the barn.  Most recently, mice have made an appearance. 

It's just a matter of time before she discovers the mice and takes care of it.