Paridera
Encyclopedia
Paridera is a Spanish word that defines in livestock
Livestock
Livestock refers to one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food, fiber and labor. The term "livestock" as used in this article does not include poultry or farmed fish; however the inclusion of these, especially poultry, within the meaning...

, the continuous period of time between the time of the first farrowing of a lot of pregnant females and the birth of the last female. In traditional architecture is a set of masonry buildings destined to the care of ewes and goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...

s.

Building for the storage of sheep

It is often the only place in many plains without any kind of coverage, of plant or rock. Shepherd
Shepherd
A shepherd is a person who tends, feeds or guards flocks of sheep.- Origins :Shepherding is one of the oldest occupations, beginning some 6,000 years ago in Asia Minor. Sheep were kept for their milk, meat and especially their wool...

 linked in the past, today, many are abandoned, most are from 19th century, some over 17th century. Many of them have been converted into hotels and country houses of upper-class families. In some areas are protected by law be cause are a refuge for endangered species such as the Chough
Chough
The Red-billed Chough or Chough , Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax, is a bird in the crow family; it is one of only two species in the genus Pyrrhocorax...

 (Pyrrhocorax).
Some look very attractive be cause are constructed in very picturesque vista
Vista
Vista usually refers to a distant view.Vista may also refer to:-Software:*Windows Vista, the line of Microsoft Windows client operating systems released in 2006 and 2007...

 or mountainous places, with natural building materials, like rocks and rough-hewn logs. Sometimes the walls and building foundations, are natural stony masses, natural caves etc. The earliest reference dates from a deed of gift of the eleventh century. In it, the King of Castilla, Alfonso VI gives to the bishop of Siguenza and his descendants the village of Savin (now Torresaviñán), referring to a farrowing crate, which original document, written in Latin, called "ovetarium" and placed in the bishop's Serna..

The paridera is a traditional building in grazing areas related to the ancient kingdom of Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...

, southern Soria
Soria
Soria is a city in north-central Spain, the capital of the province of Soria in the autonomous community of Castile and León. , the municipality has a population of c. 39,500 inhabitants, nearly 40% of the population of the province...

 and north of Guadalajara. Its use is intended to guard the sheep, both to protect them from wild animals and to save them in those moments when not grazed. They are constructed with dry stone walls, gable roof, and roof beams in poplar
Poplar
Populus is a genus of 25–35 species of deciduous flowering plants in the family Salicaceae, native to most of the Northern Hemisphere. English names variously applied to different species include poplar , aspen, and cottonwood....

, pine
Pine
Pines are trees in the genus Pinus ,in the family Pinaceae. They make up the monotypic subfamily Pinoideae. There are about 115 species of pine, although different authorities accept between 105 and 125 species.-Etymology:...

 or any log available. They consist of a corral
Corral
Corral is a town, commune and sea port in Los Ríos Region, Chile. It is located south of Corral Bay. Corral is best known for the forts of Corral Bay, a system of defensive batteries and forts made to protect Valdivia during colonial times. Corral was the headquarters of the system...

 next to the main entrance, which has a shelter or shed
Shed
A shed is typically a simple, single-storey structure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for storage, hobbies, or as a workshop....

 and an outer closed. the corral communicates with a small opening, opening to allow passage of the Lambs, one by one. Inside there is a confined space called pajar or pajera, used to store hay and grain, that preventing animals from consuming it. These facilities may be duplicated or adapted for large herds with several corrals, shelters and pajars, sometimes giving rise to its appearance resembles that of a village.

The roof is made mostly of pinewood trunks sometimes covered with fabric made ​​from small branches of oak, pine or juniper or sometimes a fabric of woven cane plastered covers the wooden structure. It receives over a insulating bed of straw, and is intended to hold the terracotta arab tiles.

stone wall built without mortar with intermediate gravel to better hold, with variable thickness from 60 cm. to 1 meter, depending on harsh in the geographic area, are made of slate, limestone or massive sandstone depending in the most abundant material.

The wall opposite to the door, is equipped with a small window for ventilation to dry the manure accumulated in the soil by animals. Also sometimes are longitudinal slits in the walls, ever little with a width not exceeding 15 cm., for ventilation. Its design allows cover the slits with stone and rag in the cold season.

Few parideras previous to the 17th century can be found as the roof of wood beams are not usually overlast more than 300 years without replacing, or manure and sheep's parasites accumulate over the years in large numbers are a problem and overgrazing depletes surrounding vegetation and is preferred by the sepherds to build another paridera to reform the old one. The new buildings could be in the same area (majada) separate from the former about 1 km or in another pasture area without depleting. They usually have nearby a well, natural source, stream, or pool that collects rain. Sometimes a pipeline or grooved terrain from the roof or the hillside collects the water rained down to a well or water tank.

The paridera accumulated, animal manure sold for farmers that used it to fertilize their fields. Manure is also an insulating material and be cause is abundant sometimes is used to be burned in a fire for heat on frost nights of winter.

Located in a natural environment wilder than now, the paridera allowed man to exploit the livestock in rural areas without being the prey of wild animals like bears, Wolf, vulture
Vulture
Vulture is the name given to two groups of convergently evolved scavenging birds, the New World Vultures including the well-known Californian and Andean Condors, and the Old World Vultures including the birds which are seen scavenging on carcasses of dead animals on African plains...

, eagle
Eagle
Eagles are members of the bird family Accipitridae, and belong to several genera which are not necessarily closely related to each other. Most of the more than 60 species occur in Eurasia and Africa. Outside this area, just two species can be found in the United States and Canada, nine more in...

 and fox
Fox
Fox is a common name for many species of omnivorous mammals belonging to the Canidae family. Foxes are small to medium-sized canids , characterized by possessing a long narrow snout, and a bushy tail .Members of about 37 species are referred to as foxes, of which only 12 species actually belong to...

. Also allowed to leave cattle unattended when giving birth, and because the smell of placenta attracted predators, the use of the paridera was essential. Similarly, the period between the outbreak of cereals-about-until harvest in January-July and August, forcing the animals to be controlled when they were grazing, not to devastate crops. In addition, postpartum ewes and newborn lambs weaker and smaller, evil endured the summer heat and can not follow the herd. Goats and ewes that have recently given birth or about to give birth, often leave the herd. In prevention of this behavior or other difficulties they are being stored during the day and taking them to graze at night. The Paridera name in Spanish literally means farrowing.

Hygienic regulations for livestock and modern prefabricated buildings have been removed to the paridera its practical usefulness. Therefore, most are disappearing because their owners do not realize the re-roof. The roof of arab tiles, due to their craft, often cracking with frost, causing leaks, which will eventually rot the rafters of the roof to cause its collapse. Those that remain can be visited in the villages of the mountainous north of Guadalajara and south of Soria and the whole semi-desert or mountainous Aragon.
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