About Our Animals
We chose animals that require little care and are hardy. During winter they get a little grain to bring them into the barn at night away from preditors. It also gives the pregnant girls a little extra energy.
It can get pretty cold here, sometimes -30 degrees at night. The barn hasn't been below zero but that's cold enough to freeze water. The creek even freezes up a few weeks in January but I don't want to chance the animals breaking through the ice anyway.
We would like to get a "solar" barn for the animals made from recycled tires and glass. Something simple for some solar gain and good light. Once we get a good snow on the ground, the sunlight bouincing into buildings can be an enormous spiritual lift and a chance to warm the bones.
The sheep don't seem to have a problem in the cold but the goats get jackets on. In April, when we plan on kids & lambs, we put jackets on them to keep the chill off. That only works when you don't have many to dress so when we get more animals, the key is to plan on kids & lambs in late May for best survival numbers.
The chickens get special treatment since we hope to make them the back-bone income of the farm along with alternative fuel sales (if the need ever arises).. They are kept well over winter indoors away from blizzard winds and wet snow. If the winter is hard, preditors will seek them out by January to February. We want to start hatching our own birds so we want the hens well feed and warm watered. We'll post the hatching unit design (heated by wood) when we get one figured out but an electrical powered hatchery would be out of the question on our low power usage.