Today's chore was to give the barn a good spring cleaning. And a chore it was. Raking, forking and shoveling for hours. Thankfully we are able to use the tractor and bobcat for the bulk of the work but still at the end of the day we were tired and sore. The animals spend a lot of time in the barn during the winter months, so the buildup of hay and manure becomes tremendous.
Since the days are becoming warmer the animals are able to spend more time in the fields and under outside shelter. With the exception of a couple more does due to kid and a place to separate milking mamas at night the barn is used very little during the summer months.
All of the stalls were scraped out, along with the hallway.The back of the barn was scraped as well. It doesn't get much sun so the mud over the winter sometimes gets 6 inches deep. Deep enough to suck off a shoe every now and then! We need to run a new fence line back there and this time I plan to relocate the gate so the animals can bypass the back where I have to carry hay to the shed. Hopefully this will make for less slogging next year.
Next week I'll get some lime for the floors and some shavings for the stalls. It will also be time to clean out and disinfect the brooders in preparation for meat birds that will be arriving next month.
No comments:
Post a Comment