Now all our pole barns are up, we have begun to ‘furnish’ them! We very much hope that they won’t be needed much for quite a while, as if the weather stays fair, the majority of the livestock will be more than happy to stay outside on the grass, even at night! The basics of what is needed inside is not a lot: a hayrack or two, a salt lick, one or two ‘plate rings’ (to tie an animal to if we need to restrain it for any reason: check an injury, give an injection etc) and a few hooks to hang any feeding troughs. We also need to sort gates at the front in case we want to shut any animals in for a while (to wash poo-y sheep bottoms for example).
Water will always be provided outside as we don’t want the inside ground to get at all wet: the whole idea of the shelters is that they keep dry, and therefore warm!
We have also put up a hay rack on the outside: this is mainly for the alpacas as they need access to hay all year round (as well as grass), because their digestive system works better with additional roughage! We will need to watch the land around these outside hay racks though, as in the winter it may become too poached. Moveable hay racks on wheels are possibly on our shopping list, as these can get moved around BEFORE any land gets too trashed by multiple feet.
Driving from shelter to shelter in the sunshine and checking on all the animals as we did so, was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. The dogs came to and were carefully watched by Neptune, still playing the role of the protective uncle to Mercury!!! Bless!