Alpaca Barn Design

We’ve had requests from time to time for details regarding the design of the feeders in our alpaca barn. Back in 2002 or so we built a new barn for our females. It’s a center aisle barn with hay feeders dividing the pens from the aisle rather than using panels or fence. This allows us to fill the feeders from the aisle, which can be a nice feature if you have some animals that are aggressive about pulling hay from your arms (there’s at least one in every crowd!).  We do have other feeders in the barn that require us to go into the pens and fill them, but these aisle feeders accommodate most of our alpacas.

I found these pictures the other day in answer to another request for feeder details, so I thought I’d share them again. We love our alpaca barn design and there’s very little we’d change. The pens on either long side of the barn can be subdivided to make room for different feeding groups. We can also open the two sides up at the far end of the barn and blocking one end of the center aisle to have just one large group in the barn. When we do that, the alpacas can eat from either side of the feeders. That’s how we’ve been using it all winter. Weaning will start in a few weeks and we’ll have to rethink how to divide the barn. It’s nice to have options!