Bucklings need a home
If you have been following the blog, you know that the Bucklings are growing up faster than I expected. To prevent unwanted pregnancy, I had to divide the goat house to separate the girls from the boys. https://titanranch.ca/the-bucklings-need-to-be-separated-and-i-am-not-ready/
Since then, I have been working on the boys new home. With all this heat I have only been able to work on it for a few hours in the morning and again in the evening. The rest of the day I have been hibernating inside and giving thanks for my Air Conditioner!
My son gave me a hand erecting the walls, and my daughter put climbed the ladder to install the roof. (have I mentioned before that I am kind of accident prone – I don’t do ladders while home alone.) I had my two oldest grand daughters staying with me for the last 2 weeks, so I was able to request an extra hand when needed while installing the siding etc.
Learning new skills
I have never worked with metal roofing/siding before. I was surprised that it is relatively easy to cut with a circular saw (after you find a metal cutting blade and figure out how to change the blades). The only hard part is making sure I was covered from head to toe from the sparks and metal pieces, while not expiring from the current heat wave. It has been over 30 degrees Celsius most days recently.
I was alone when it came time to build and install the door, so it doesn’t close perfectly. I just need to kick/lift the bottom corner as I close the door to get it to fit. LOL
Shelter design
The bucklings need an enclosed shelter to protect them from predators – there are lots of coyote in the area. The plan is to never have more than 2-3 bucks, so the shelter did not need to be very large. I decided that 6 ft by 8 ft would be big enough and made it 6.5 ft tall at the front.
I added a pallet bed for them to sleep on, and the rest is dirt floor. Part of the pallet is covered with heavy rubber flooring and the edges are covered with shingles. Hopefully the shingles will help reduce the amount of foot trimming required. Their play structure will incorporate shingles as well.
For night time snacking, I incorporated a small hay rack in between the studs. Their main hay supply will be the covered hay feeder outside.
Move in day delayed
After all my complaining about the heat, it started to rain this afternoon. Goats hate rain…
I will wait until the weather improves a bit to move the boys to their new home.
Fencing Progress
We now have a large area enclosed for the animals. It is about 700 ft by 300 ft. The pasture will be divided into a large horse paddock and three goat paddocks – One for the girls, one for the boys, and one in the middle for breeding dates, extra rotational grazing etc.
There is a new barn in the works. It should be here in December. Birthing pens will be in the barn. The barn will also provide much needed storage room and a place for the horses in extreme cold.
We won’t get our cross fencing complete until next month (the next time everyone will be home to rent the post pounder…) so I will erect a temporary fence for the boys. The girls will be able to graze the entire fenced area for now.
