Building a Mini Animal Barn Phase 1
I remember when I was in elementary school, we were given a few minutes to share what we did on summer vacation or during the Christmas break; so in that spirit here is what I worked on during my Christmas vacation.
Last year we ended up fulfilling a long dream of ours of getting some farm animals. The only problem is that we did not have any outbuildings or structures for the sheep to take shelter during storms. In fact we did not have any fencing, so that was my first project when we got our first two sheep. Our first shelter we set up was an old doghouse that was left by the previous owner and that worked while the sheep were young but they quickly outgrew that one. The second shelter was a simple plywood and 2x4 structure that I built last winter and its dimensions are 2'wx4'Lx4'h and has actually done fairly decent. However with my wife surprising me with three alpacas for an early Christmas present, I knew it was way overdue to build a more permanent structure. The main hold-up on this project is that I have extremely limited building skills, tools and our property has about 2" of top soil and then goes straight to rocky, shale which is extremely hard to dig into.
However, the alpacas definitely gave me the motivation that I needed to get this building completed. I knew that I wanted a pole building due to it rather simplistic design and ease of erecting this type of structure. The next part is finding building materials. Last year when I first decided to build this structure, we actually found a lady on freecycle who gave us about a dozen pressure treated 4x4 posts that ranged from 8 feet in length up to 10 feet, so these would be the poles that I would use.
My father-in-law had a big stack of rough sawed oak that was a full 1 1/2" thick and ranged in width from 5" up to 14", that he donated to us. He was originally going to use this stack of wood for flooring in his house that he built, but it was too time consuming; so this wood was left stacked up for years in his yard waiting to be put to use. The wood is beautiful when it is planed down to a smooth oak finish, but this project does not need such beautiful wood so I left it rough sawed and with a nice patina. It really looks like it came off an old barn. The only problem is that all of this wood has sat out for years and there was not a straight piece in the bunch and that includes the 4x4 posts.
I spent several hours on Christmas Eve, digging the holes for the posts and trying to level the posts. The structure is definitely not perfect and contains bows in the wood posts and is even not perfectly square, but for the price that I paid for the wood I cannot complain too much. In fact all of the wood cost me nothing--that's right it was all FREE to build this structure. I did have a few 2x4's for the rafters that I purchased but that was several months ago. So far with what you see in the picture I have $75 in nails, corrugated metal roofing, and a few 2x4's.
We have decided to build this structure in 3 phases. The first phase is the main shelter area for the animals to take refuge from wind and rain and it measures 8'x8'x7 1/2'. It's probably a little on the small side for 5 animals but they will only use this for shelter and not a permanent living area. They prefer to spend their days and nights in the pasture but our sheep do not like the rain or snow or moisture and the alpacas will need this shelter as well.
Phase 2 will include a slanted roof over an open area that will become their new feeding station. This will protect their feed hay from bad weather and will be rather easy to build but its usefulness cannot be overstated. My wife came up with this idea and I immediately saw the need for it. Right now we just throw their hay in a pile on the ground so it gets ruined during any rainstorm. The covered feeding station will minimize the amount of ruined hay and also provide a quick shelter as well.
Phase 3 will be built on the left side of the mini-barn and will be a fully enclosed room with a wood floor and will give us an area to store the hay and chicken feed and other animal related items. It will also provide me an area to retreat to for those times that my wife kicks me out of the house. Just kidding about that, but right now we store our hay in the garage, so we are excited to finally have a real place to store all of our hay and animal feed.
It has taken a few days for the animals to get adjusted to this new structure but they are finally getting used to it and I think they like it a lot. So without further ado, here are the photos of the phase 1 that I've completed. Try not to laugh too hard at my lack of building skills and while the wood looks really rotted, its not. The few pieces that I cut into was perfect looking solid wood once you get past the patina, and if it was planed down it would be absolutely gorgeous.
Last year we ended up fulfilling a long dream of ours of getting some farm animals. The only problem is that we did not have any outbuildings or structures for the sheep to take shelter during storms. In fact we did not have any fencing, so that was my first project when we got our first two sheep. Our first shelter we set up was an old doghouse that was left by the previous owner and that worked while the sheep were young but they quickly outgrew that one. The second shelter was a simple plywood and 2x4 structure that I built last winter and its dimensions are 2'wx4'Lx4'h and has actually done fairly decent. However with my wife surprising me with three alpacas for an early Christmas present, I knew it was way overdue to build a more permanent structure. The main hold-up on this project is that I have extremely limited building skills, tools and our property has about 2" of top soil and then goes straight to rocky, shale which is extremely hard to dig into.
However, the alpacas definitely gave me the motivation that I needed to get this building completed. I knew that I wanted a pole building due to it rather simplistic design and ease of erecting this type of structure. The next part is finding building materials. Last year when I first decided to build this structure, we actually found a lady on freecycle who gave us about a dozen pressure treated 4x4 posts that ranged from 8 feet in length up to 10 feet, so these would be the poles that I would use.
My father-in-law had a big stack of rough sawed oak that was a full 1 1/2" thick and ranged in width from 5" up to 14", that he donated to us. He was originally going to use this stack of wood for flooring in his house that he built, but it was too time consuming; so this wood was left stacked up for years in his yard waiting to be put to use. The wood is beautiful when it is planed down to a smooth oak finish, but this project does not need such beautiful wood so I left it rough sawed and with a nice patina. It really looks like it came off an old barn. The only problem is that all of this wood has sat out for years and there was not a straight piece in the bunch and that includes the 4x4 posts.
I spent several hours on Christmas Eve, digging the holes for the posts and trying to level the posts. The structure is definitely not perfect and contains bows in the wood posts and is even not perfectly square, but for the price that I paid for the wood I cannot complain too much. In fact all of the wood cost me nothing--that's right it was all FREE to build this structure. I did have a few 2x4's for the rafters that I purchased but that was several months ago. So far with what you see in the picture I have $75 in nails, corrugated metal roofing, and a few 2x4's.
We have decided to build this structure in 3 phases. The first phase is the main shelter area for the animals to take refuge from wind and rain and it measures 8'x8'x7 1/2'. It's probably a little on the small side for 5 animals but they will only use this for shelter and not a permanent living area. They prefer to spend their days and nights in the pasture but our sheep do not like the rain or snow or moisture and the alpacas will need this shelter as well.
Phase 2 will include a slanted roof over an open area that will become their new feeding station. This will protect their feed hay from bad weather and will be rather easy to build but its usefulness cannot be overstated. My wife came up with this idea and I immediately saw the need for it. Right now we just throw their hay in a pile on the ground so it gets ruined during any rainstorm. The covered feeding station will minimize the amount of ruined hay and also provide a quick shelter as well.
Phase 3 will be built on the left side of the mini-barn and will be a fully enclosed room with a wood floor and will give us an area to store the hay and chicken feed and other animal related items. It will also provide me an area to retreat to for those times that my wife kicks me out of the house. Just kidding about that, but right now we store our hay in the garage, so we are excited to finally have a real place to store all of our hay and animal feed.
It has taken a few days for the animals to get adjusted to this new structure but they are finally getting used to it and I think they like it a lot. So without further ado, here are the photos of the phase 1 that I've completed. Try not to laugh too hard at my lack of building skills and while the wood looks really rotted, its not. The few pieces that I cut into was perfect looking solid wood once you get past the patina, and if it was planed down it would be absolutely gorgeous.
Here are the 3 Alpacas Feeding in the New Shelter Barn
Posted by The Outdoor Podcast at 12/28/2011 6:42 PM 
Categories: Animal Husbandry
Tags: Sheep Barn Sheep Shed Alpaca Barn Alpaca Shed Build a Sheep Shed Build an Alpaca Barn
Categories: Animal Husbandry
Tags: Sheep Barn Sheep Shed Alpaca Barn Alpaca Shed Build a Sheep Shed Build an Alpaca Barn
cool article. wish i wasn't so sick. i'd have helped you more w/ this project. but proud of your efforts to 'git er done' my outdoor hero guy ; )
Reply to this