In the winter, the cold - severe cold - helps take care of parasite problems in the barn -and the field. As the warmer weather returns (Yeah! Its snowing outside here again!), extra care is required to keep the little nasty buggers out of the goats' digestive system.
Our 150 year old barn has dirt floors, which has positives and negatives. It is easier on the legs of the animals, and absorbs
some of the smell and moisture.
But its dirt. How do you keep dirt clean? Well, we try to be as vigilant as possible with a daily clean up of wet materials and big poop piles. We try to get the wet areas covered with bedding to keep things solid, but sometimes that's hard.
So once a month or so, we take everything down to the dirt, trying to get every poop pebble, or berry, as some call them, out of the barn. Can you see the hen above checking for edibles? They follow my trail every morning checking out the places I expose after I scrape the floors. They scratch some more looking for snacks.
Then we lime the floor to neutralize odors and kill some of the eggs and whatever
nasties are in the dirt. We let the lime sit till we are ready to bring everyone in, and cover it with clean, thick bedding. In the summer, I think this helps keep the flea and fly population down also. I can't tell you how many wheel barrow's full we emptied this week-end, but I'm glad its done for a while.
Doing it in this snowy, sloppy weather through mud made it all the more fun too.
Look at these dirty little goats.
Our 150 year old barn has dirt floors, which has positives and negatives. It is easier on the legs of the animals, and absorbs some of the smell and moisture. 
But its dirt. How do you keep dirt clean? Well, we try to be as vigilant as possible with a daily clean up of wet materials and big poop piles. We try to get the wet areas covered with bedding to keep things solid, but sometimes that's hard. 
So once a month or so, we take everything down to the dirt, trying to get every poop pebble, or berry, as some call them, out of the barn. Can you see the hen above checking for edibles? They follow my trail every morning checking out the places I expose after I scrape the floors. They scratch some more looking for snacks.
Then we lime the floor to neutralize odors and kill some of the eggs and whatever nasties are in the dirt. We let the lime sit till we are ready to bring everyone in, and cover it with clean, thick bedding. In the summer, I think this helps keep the flea and fly population down also. I can't tell you how many wheel barrow's full we emptied this week-end, but I'm glad its done for a while.
Doing it in this snowy, sloppy weather through mud made it all the more fun too. 
Look at these dirty little goats.
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1 comment:
And, I thought I was the only one who had to deal with dirty little kids in the wet weather! ;)
Your kids are soooo cute!
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