Sunday, April 24, 2011

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.

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