Making a home

Today, Easter (Happy Easter!) we finally have a day without rain and snow (it snowed yesterday). So the big shed is going to be cleaned out by the end of the day and Val will know what he needs to do to make it a safe place for little goats to live. The shed is a simple three sided run in facing south that I modified to house my goats two years ago. I built a wall between the open side and the closed side. It has a sliding door that you sometimes find on old barns (really good because it opens even when there is snow on one side and high bedding on the other). The shed is younger than ten years so the door probably came from a much older barn. The goats will live in the closed in area which measures 16 by 8 feet. I need to close the area around the sliding door somehow to prevent little kids from slipping out--there is a space of a few inches which the babies used to escape in the past. I may have to make the shed slightly smaller and put a gate inside that keeps them away from the door.

They can't be out in the pen at night or when I'm gone while they are small because I had two babies get out and one was killed by a neighbor's dog while I was away before. I don't want a repeat of that episode. My solution was to use the smaller shed for the babies after that with it's little covered pen, but it's too rotten to save. So, today (the first day without rain this whole vacation) we will work on the shed. Which has been used to store junk for the past two years! Val told me that I can pick up the goats this Saturday. The pen will be woven wire and one strand of electric.

Getting Ready

We've been getting ready for the babies to come home here on the farm...now that the snow has finally gone. Goats need a shelter that is draft free and that protects them from the rain so I thought I would get the 8 x 10 kidding shed that I used two years ago. It would keep them safe from any predators (it has real doors unlike the other shed which has a hanging door that slides into place--leaving gaps big enough for little kids or worse, coyotes).

I knew that some of the tin had been blown up during a big storm and that the roof would need work one way or the other but what I didn't know is that the wooden floor had rotted and when we pulled it up we found that the braces under the floor were rotten too! The walls are flapping with no sill. This brought the question "do we repair the roof or start over?" It's disappointing beyond words but we decided that we need to start over and build a new kid shed.

Now I will need to make the second shed (20 x 16) ready to house goats. It works well for big goats but it's no good for kids. I've created a plan to make it secure and snug but I still have to leave a large part for the two horses (Belgian draft and welsh pony). At least the floor is dirt. I need to separate the does from the buck and wether...the kid shed had two stalls while the other shed is open to the elements on one side. The horse side.

I am very impatient to have the goats come home. The breeder is putting them on milk replacer this week, so why not? We will figure something out, fix the fence and get a shelter up, even if it's just temporary. The buck won't be able to breed until he's at least two months old so a temporary fix should be safe for now. I will post what we come up with soon!