The goats’ field shelter got a 'spring clean' today!! We may have very squidgy land due to the recent rains but the field shelters systems for the goats are so far holding up! We have a ‘super dry’ section at the back with rubber matting and straw and then a ‘wipe your feet’ section at the front where spilt hay and a bit of straw sit on top of the ground. At the very front we have laid a row of gate mats! These had got quite muddy but today we re-laid them with a mattress of old hay underneath to stop quite so much mud oozing through! The grass in front is very soft but on the whole is still grass! The whole building is 30 foot by 15 foot with a divider in the middle and so there is plenty of room for the five goats (Curds was in the right hand side out of shot when we took this photo). For much of their time outside (which is actually only around 8/9 hours now from dawn till dusk) all five of them pretty much hang around in the shelters. They could in theory stay inside the barn, but we think it is better for them to be out in the ‘fresh air’ plus if they fancy a wander they can have one.
We ‘muck out’ every few days depending on how things are looking. Today was the first day we did a more thorough clean since we set them up several weeks ago!
The cow field shelter is not faring so well and even though we are no longer feeding in the shelter, the cows still go inside and so we now have a bit of a quagmire outside it. We decided today to shut it off for a while. No more serious rain is forecast for the next few days plus the hedges/ trees in the bottom 3-acre provide a fair amount of cover anyway. In keeping with sheep and alpacas, cows don’t rush for shelter at the first sign of precipitation!
We are not quite sure how we will manage the cows long term re the field shelter and mud! Watch this space as they say (and pray for sub zero temperatures and frozen ground!).