Gettin' in over our head.....

[jwstewar]

Wow, what a crazy 4 days it has been. The builder finished the barn on Thursday. Then on Friday we put the fence posts up to enclose the area at the back of the barn where we had taken the fence down. Finished the fence on Saturday and I did some back filling and such with some stuff out of our creek. Goats were allowed access to the barn on Saturday night, but they were confused and wondering why they weren't taken back to their home Saturday night. They spent the entire night out in the pasture. The boys moved to the girls old barn (8x16 shed). They had no problem adjusting and seem to be loving it. Sunday we actually started some stalls for a couple of reasons 1.) I wanted to know where to put the water hydrant 2.) make sure the stall layout was going to work. Even though we still need to haul fill in, in the area where we put the stalls we won't need a lot of fill. Then my cousin brought his mini-excavator over and started digging the trench for the water line. I ended up taking yesterday off work. Monica and I then ran the water line, got the two yard hydrants (1 in/1 out) installed and the line ran over to where the milk room will be eventually. I then got almost everything back filled last night in the ran. Still have about 40' yet to go, but I have to put a pipe over the shut off valve before I can do that, just ran out of time last night. We ran about 385' of line - I had bought 400' - glad I did, I almost bought the 300' roll. I'll try to get pictures, but it'll probably be weekend before I do with it getting dark early now.

 

[jwstewar]

Sorry, I haven't been good at update this thread with how the barn has been progressing. It is progressing, albeit very slow given the weather we've been dealing with here. The girls seem to like their new home now and a lot of days where it has been cold/rainy they don't even venture out of the barn. They might come to the one door and poke their head out and look and they wonder back in. I still don't have any updated pictures of the outside, but here are a few of the inside, it is actually starting to look a little bit like a barn instead of a metal building. The first picture is the stall which will eventually be the boys' stall (94" x 16') once we get the fence up for them on the outside. I finished the gate up for it last night so we are now able to store a bit of hay, straw, and food out there and not have to take it out every night. Second picture is of the "big" stall in the other corner. This is roughly 94" x 12'. Notice how the gate is able to fold back flat against the other stall. All gates will be able to do that so when we aren't kidding the stalls can be used as sleeping areas as they like to feel enclosed so they feel secure. The next picture are of 2 normal stalls next to the big corner stall, these are roughly 8'x8'. BTW, notice the shovel and manual post hold digger in a couple of the shots. While we were putting in one of the poles we nicked the new water. Nothing a couple connectors and some clamps couldn't fix, but it did make a mess. Next is a picture looking at the NW corner of the barn. You can get an idea of how much fill I'm having to haul in to bring everything up to level. You can see the mud track that I've left in front of the barn from going in and out so much. You can also see the 2x4s and OSB laying on the ground that we are using under the normal sliding door to keep the goats in until I get all of the fill in.

Finally you can see some pics of our Boer Buck and our 2 Alpine Bucks, they are in the area where we used to keep the girls. You can see the new barn off in the background of the one pic. The big guy in front is Bullet Proof. He was born in March. We bought him Sept. 2nd and he weighed 52 pounds. We weighed him at the end of November and he was 128. I'm guessing he has probably put another 20 - 25 on since.

Next steps for the barn are to get the conduit ran for the main electric box so I can finish the fill and also some drain lines for the milk room. Then I will continue hauling dirt in as time/weather permits. Once we save up some money (is that possible?) we will get the conduit/wiring to bring the electrical service in. Once that is there, I will slowly do the internal wiring. For right now we are feeding it with an extension cord. This allows us to keep the 2 heated water buckets going and also I have 4 4' cold start shop lights hung that give us lighting in side. It is amazing how those 4' lights give us enough light to do what we need for now. Once we get permanent wiring I think I want about 12' of them though.

Starting to count the days down until we get babies. We could be as short as 2-3 weeks before we start getting them. Then we will have babies coming fairly steadily (every 2 - 3 weeks) until about the 1st of May. Didn't really plan on staggering them that far out, but it just kind of happened.

 

[bczoom]

Looking good!!!

Where you're moving dirt, that looks awfully mucky. Hard to walk on it? Oh, and why is that DeWalt saw sitting in the mud?

I've had good results using fluorescent lights in my buildings so long as they're the ones rated for the cold. Although a bit more expensive, the metal halide also work very well.

Are you putting in any drains or drain tiles as you bring in your fill? If not, are you going cut in and put some in later after the floor hardens some?

 

[jwstewar]

Yes, the dirt is a bit mucky. All of the rain and snow we've had in the last couple of weeks didn't help. It was doing pretty well in there until I hit that water line, that made it a bit of a mess. The little pump I had didn't have enough pressure to really move the water to far away, so I ended up just running it away from the hole as best as I could.

At this point, we hadn't planned on doing any drain tile in the barn, thought plan could change as we see fit. All OSB & stall walls are screwed on instead of nails so they can easily be removed as we see a need to increase or change stall so, so if they need should arise, the stall walls could be removed and we can tile if need be.

As to the DeWalt saw sitting on the ground, yes, I'm bad about just "throwing" my tools on the ground when I'm using them. This is especially true in this environment as you can't put anything up as we are working around the goats and anything that is "put up" will be discovered and will soon come down. Don't want to hit anyone in the head.

 

[jwstewar]

Oh, this is also our second attempt at stalls. First attempt was 3 boards, 9" from the ground and 12" apart. They either just crawled under or hopped through. Now the bottom board is about 7" from the ground and there is only 8" between the rails. Seems to have stopped all of them except our little Pygmy. She pretty much just goes where she wants anyway. We wanted to let them still be able to get their heads out so they could see around so they wouldn't be lonely as goats are very social animals and will get depressed if by themselves. So this was our best compromise, we don't plan on any more Pygmies, so this was our solution. Will have to figure something out though when the boys move to keep her away from them as they are so big they would easily hurt her.

 

[jwstewar]

We must have done something right with the water line. We were -9 the other night and it didn't freeze. So I figure if we made it through this without freezing, we should be good to go.

 

[jwstewar]

This is the east side of west bound Callie. She is getting close to delivery. We took her offsite to be bred, best we can tell is she is due around the 24th if she goes the average of 150 days - but they can go +/- up to 5 days. She could also be due as early as 21st (meaning she could deliver as soon as the 16th) or as late as Feb. 14. The way she is looking and behaving though, it is sooner than later. So I would say by the end of next week she should deliver. I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't later this week or weekend.

 

[BaiJiu]

Happy to hear that they did so well, great story thanks for sharing.

 

[jwstewar]

We must have done something right with the water line. We were -9 the other night and it didn't freeze. So I figure if we made it through this without freezing, we should be good to go.

Guess I didn't do it so right after all. I got a love letter from the water company yesterday. We used an excessive amount of water. When I got home last night sure enough, the water meter is continuously spinning. I shut the valve off going to the barn and it stops. So that is the good part. Now I just have to figure out where the leak is. I'm betting it is where I had to do the repair where I nicked it when putting in the poles for the stalls. So I guess I will start digging tomorrow before the real cold weather moves in again.

 

[BaiJiu]

That really sucks, repairing under ground water lines in this muck isn't much fun.

 

[jwstewar]

Meet Maximus, Prim (as in Primrose), and Blaze. They were born on Saturday. They weighed in at 7.38, 6.69, and 6.90 lbs. Saturday evening. As of yesterday they were weighed 8.5 lbs, 7.7 and 7.9 lbs. so they are growing quite nicely at just under 3/4 lb a day. Pretty good for being cold and they are just now starting to move around really good. Prim and Blaze were having trouble walking around Saturday night but Max was going where ever he wanted and he is Mommy's favorite (first born buck), so we have to be real careful and make sure she doesn't neglect the others. As of Sunday then Blaze was walking around good, Prim was still struggling to stand, but eating well. As of yesterday all are walking good and able to go where they want, but Maximus is starting to run and hop around quite a bit. They've all learned where the kid box is and really enjoy the 250 watt heat lamp beating down on them keeping them warm. The little suckers can scream pretty loud when they can't get what they want.

 

[Doc]

Congrats. Too cute.

Just seeing your excessive water post. We had the problem one time. Saw where the water was pooling but that was not where the leak started. We opted to run a whole new water line from the meter. Rented a ditch witch and got er done in short order. Better than hunting and pecking for an elusive leak.

 

[jwstewar]

Guess I forgot to post the resolution to that. I started digging that Friday and found the leak in the very first spot I dug. Turned out when I patched it from where I hit it with the auger I had made the patch just a little bit too long and had the line in a bind and causing it to flare out a bit on the one edge. Wasn't a huge leak, but obviously enough. So I cut that patch out and installed a new one about 3/4" shorter and turned the water back on. And then verified the meter wasn't spinning. Then I refilled the hole and checked again and it still wasn't, so I think we are OK now. And the best part, it hasn't frozen through any of the cold spells we've had - even when we were at minus 15 last week.

 

[Doc]

Good. Sounds like that fix fixed it for good. yeah, we've had the temps that really test the freezing of the lines. Sounds like you did er right if you have not had them freeze up this winter.

 

[OhioTC18]

Glad to hear you got it fixed. I'll bet the kids are loving having babies around.

 

[BaiJiu]

OMG they are so cute, I just couldn't have them here my wife would turn them into pets.

 

[jwstewar]

Thought I would catch up a little bit again. I don't have pictures of all of them on my phone, but we now have 7 babies running around....uh scratch that 9 and another 1 coming as I'm typing. We had the 3 (2 bucks and a doe boer) that was born on the 1st, 1 (buck boer) on Feb 7th, 2 (doe & buck Alpine) on Feb 9th, and 1 (doe boer) on Feb. 11. All are growing well and doing great. The buck that was on the 7th was rather large (11.5 lbs) and Monica ended up having to pull him out. Other than that, all has gone well. She just now called me. 1 of our Toggenburg's is in labor (due today) and she has just now delivered 2 and a 3rd on the way. At this point she is unsure of what they are as she just saw them as she hadn't gone out yet this morning as our youngest daughter must be starting to get sick and being clingy this morning.

We did have one bid of disaster that we got VERY, VERY lucky on. I've said before we are using heat lamps. I don't want those to be the long term heating solution, but for this year that was about our only alternative given the time frame and the amount of money we've already spent on this recently. When I put them up, I put them at the height I wanted and then clipped them and then zipped tied and/or tied their cord up to the boards on the stalls. Well as the babies grew the heat lamps were moved up. Well they weren't zip tied again and the power cord was left loose. Unfortunately one of the goats knocked one of them down. It hit the ground and caught some of the straw on fire. We got real lucky in 2 regards. All goats were out of their stalls and the barn door was open. They were all able to go outside. Also when it started Monica and Alex went out to feed (I was finishing up eating myself and was then going to take care of the bucks, dog, and chickens) and stomped the flames and then I went out and we started pouring water on the hot spots and all of the affected wood. I then started shoveling the straw outside of the barn so it couldn't rekindle. No outside damage to the barn. 2 stall boards burnt fairly bad and 2 of the sheets of OSB damaged. Then 1 extension cord and 2 heat lamps burnt. 1 post was damaged, but doesn't seem to be structurally affected. The 2 kid boxes destroyed. Monica replaced 1 of the 2x6s on the stall last Thursday. Then we took the 1 sheet of damaged OSB down, put a new one up in its place and cut the burnt area off the damaged piece and I cut it up and made new kid boxes. We then sanded the stall boards that weren't burnt but had smoke and heat damage to get that off them. So I think we have it "back to normal." Looking at different ways we can do it for next year. Hopefully we can do better given that we have more time.

Those of you that have known me for awhile no this isn't our first encounter with a fire. At least this one had a better outcome than the first, but it sure did bring back a lot of bad memories.

 

[OhioTC18]

As soon as I started reading about heat lamps, I thought Oh No not again. Glad it was minimal damage.

 

[bczoom]

As soon as I started reading about heat lamps, I thought Oh No not again. Glad it was minimal damage.

Ditto.

Glad the damage was minor, relatively speaking.

 

[BaiJiu]

You were so very blessed, things could have been so much worse and thank God no one was hurt, human or animal. Material stuff can be bothersome but easily repaired/replaced. I use heat lamps a lot for poultry, water fowl and rabbits and I am always so conscious of what could happen particularly with the bedding I use, wood chips and straw.