Bruce's Journal

[frustratedearthmother]

Frost sounds pretty good, lol! We're 93 right now - with the humidity our heat index is 103... Started unloading square bales this morning - but not even going to think about finishing them until that sun heads a little more west...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Double post

 

[NH homesteader]

Ughhh 95!? It was 28 when I woke up this morning. The baby piggies have been spending a lot of time in their little house buried in hay!

Apparently alpacas are not worried about the cold!

 

[Bruce]

Not these boys, at least not with a year plus of fleece and pretty mild (for Andean mountain animals) temperatures. It will be interesting to see what type of weather drives them inside the barn. It was raining some the other day and they just went to the new area I fenced in on the north end of the barn (where their access door is) and hung out away from the wind.

New morning behavior. They didn't go around into the barn for pellets like the other day and they didn't come to the gate. They were watching the private road that runs up the south side of our property. Eventually I saw an orange cat walking up the hill on the road. Teddy did as well and started alerting. After the cat disappeared, they came to the gate for pellets. Everything I've seen them alert on has been at least 100 yards away.

 

[Bruce]

The boys seem to have decided that it is safe to go in the barn other than for bribes (ie alpaca pellets). They aren't hanging out in the rain anymore. Last night Laddie was drinking from the bucket on the wall, first time I've observed it. I lowered it this morning to about alpaca shoulder height since in the old position, his head was up and his neck was right on the edge. Probably likely to have trouble if the water were too low.

Of course they were concerned I might be going in to damage them in some fashion and went outside while I did the work though they came right back in when I was done (because it is raining again!).There is a gate in the alley that I have to open to access their end of the barn. Teddy went back out the door when I brought the water over. Laddie was looking nervous but stayed inside while I put the water in the bucket.

Now as to this nervousness. I ran across the guy I got them from (actually from his wife really) and asked just how they managed to get the hooves, Ivermectin, etc stuff done with them not wanting to be touched. He said "you have to manhandle them" and they trapped them in a small space before grabbing and "manhandling" them. No wonder these boys are shy about being touched. Touch always means "something bad is about to happen". Guess I'll be working on that.

 

[Mike CHS]

We are planning on building some handling chutes to make the "man handling" a little less drastic.

 

[Bruce]

That is how most people do it Given they had 7 alpacas, I'm surprised they didn't have something of that nature.

 

[Bruce]

Been working on fencing about an acre. The existing fence you see around the barnyard/pond area is weasly
This is the modified plan


2 threads with questions and answers might be of interest to others:
http://www.backyardherds.com/threads/fence-post-bracing.34779/
http://www.backyardherds.com/threads/6-5-tposts-4-fence-hotwire-at-5-opinions-please.34768/

I have the line posts in down the west side for 4' field fencing though I need to make 2 H braces for a gate about halfway down. I hit ledge at 2' on the NW corner. Really wanted that post in 3' but it isn't going to happen. Hopefully the floating brace I plan to make will be enough to hold that post. I also wanted to make an H brace there coming south for a gate but I can't find anywhere even reasonably close that doesn't also soon hit ledge. Guess I'll have to figure something out next year.

The reason for not following the property line on the south side is a pile of really big rocks (*) around that tree and a rock lined swale for a culvert under the road. Didn't realize it was there. I wonder if that explains why the people who live on the other side of the road are suffering floods and driveway washout every year. They even had someone with a bulldozer work on it last year. No difference this year near as I can tell.

And if you are wondering why the south line on the right doesn't follow the existing fence line, it is because it is outside the property line. The guy we bought from said it was "grandfathered" but there is no mention of it in the deed. Why he built the riding ring with the north and south fences not parallel nor even the same angle to the fences running N/S is beyond me. They owned an additional 20 acres and split it off to make 8 building lots. That is where the road goes. In any case, I see no reason to build a fence on the Association's road right of way.

If you look at the first link you can see that I got a good suggestion from @farmerjan and expanded on it. I got the SW corner 6" post in today and all of the 7' T-posts (2' in the ground) for the cattle panels on the south side EXCEPT ONE! Hit a big rock at about 18". It happens to be a place where 2 CPs overlap so I can't move 1 post too far. I tried 6" left and right, no luck. I am going to pull one of the 6.5' T-posts (that were SUPPOSED to be 7' but someone at TSC had dumped MANY bundles of 6.5' posts on the 7' rack and when I bought the first 25 posts, the guy helping to load the car reasonably ASSUMED that the ones in the 7' rack were 7'. I had done the same). Anyway, I'm hoping having 1 post 6" less deep will be OK. @greybeard said they are pretty stable as long as the plate is in the ground.

At @greybeard's suggestion, I bought two 12' corral panels to use as gates so they can be 5' high instead of 4' like standard "we don't care that you want your chickens to stay on one side of a fence" agricultural gates. That way I won't need to carry the hotwire over the gates and screw around with moving it out of the way when I open the gate, then put it back when I close the gate. One gate for the west line as mentioned and one on the east side between the two pieces of existing fence (except most of the lower fence was removed to make room for the concrete truck when the solar arrays were put in last December. So were 2 sections of the south fence. There is a falling apart wooden gate on too short and unstable posts in the east side fence, I will be replacing that. The 2 solar arrays are in that area between the not parallel E/W fences in the middle of the picture.


At some point I will make a fence that runs gate to gate (the ones mentioned) with an inline gate toward the east end so I can choose to have the alpacas in one pasture or the other.

I'm also thinking I will use @farmerjan's cattle panel idea for the short E/W sections projecting from the little barn.

Tomorrow I will work on an H brace for the SW corner so I can put a gate there. Probably a rework next year because I have only so much time (and energy, digging post holes in ground with rocks is not a quick task) to get this fence up so at the moment it will be bracing the fence between the SW corner and the mid point gate. And, hopefully get a 6" 8' post in the SE corner. The existing post is fairly stable but too short. Depending on how much energy I have (and how long it takes to put in those two 6" posts!) I'll start on the H braces for the gates. When I'm too low on energy to dig holes, I'll fix the cattle panels to the T-posts I put in today.

* I have mentioned that prior owners seem to like to put rocks where I want to dig holes or put in posts, right?

 

[Mike CHS]

We know what you are going through with the rocks.

 

[NH homesteader]

I have to get my husband to help me do fencing because I am really good at finding rocks. He seems to be able to at least dodge them well enough to get a t-post in! We have weird soil here too, it's almost like clay. And loves to turn to mud. So we have a lot of muddy rocks... Yay us.