Horse Barn, Alpaca Barn...Chicken Barn!

Our 100+ year old barn has housed quite an array of livestock.  In an earlier blog I mention that it was set up for Oxen when we first purchased the farm. After raising up the loft and restructuring inside, I transitioned the barn to keep our horses. After several years of housing and birthing horses in the barn, Alpacas took up residence there along with a few goats.

Now the old barn is slated for an update to house our current focus, the chickens. Because our business took off so quickly and the acquisition of another chicken business, we had to quickly provide safe and clean housing for all these awesome new birds. The big horse stalls had room to make two coops in each one. Using wood from an old deck from a neighbor, I built a separate coop that houses four different breeds. We called this the “Chicken Suites”. My son and I went out into our woods and resourced some small locust trees. We used these small trees to frame out the pens for the suites.  Still needing more housing, Amy and I designed some “Chicken Cabins”. A 4’x4’ coop with 4’x8’ attached pens. These will house about 4 birds of different breeds each. In one day, I built eight of these cabins, it was a long day!

Now we are planning another big reno of the old barn. We will, of course, keep it’s old barn look on the outside, but I will be removing the stall walls and building coops on two sides with a center isle. All with attached pens. We are trying to centralize our birds to make it easier to feed and water, especially in the cold months. We may have to build a second barn that will attach to the current one. It will not be as tall but the same size footprint.

This is in addition to my plan to build a post and beam workshop fashioned after a barn at Old Sturbridge Village and our newest idea of building a greenhouse from repurposed windows. Next year we are also planning on transitioning an old alpaca paddock into a big garden.

We will be starting the Hatching and Brooder room build within the barn that I built in the next few weeks. If you’ve lost track, this was a workshop to a farm store to a yarn mill back to a farm store then back to a workshop and now will be a Hatcher/Brooder room. The attached feed room will then become my workshop. As you see, my workshop tends to bounce around, hence why I am planning a whole new barn for my new shop.

My work is never done here and for those who cannot sit still and like having an ongoing project all the time (like my son), a farm is for you.

-WF