January Catch-Up

Kidding season is coming soon, so we’ve been organizing our outbuildings and getting ready to move our wethers to a different sheltered area. This will give our pregnant does space to give birth, and plenty of room for their babies once they’re born.

Unfortunately, before we can start building the shelter for the wethers, we need to backtrack a little and disassemble the buck house we built last summer.

Why? Because almost as soon as it was built, we realized the space it occupied would be better utilized with a lean-to off the big barn. We hemmed and hawed over this decision for awhile, but ultimately decided that we could very easily incorporate a stall under the lean-to, which be more beneficial than the little buck shelter for all kinds of reasons.

First, It would be more spacious, which means we could easily house more animals there if needed. Second, it’s easier to access and much easier to clean. And third, its new location meant we could easily create a gravel path just outside the stall for human folk and goat friends alike, which I’m hoping will help prevent hoof rot and overly muddy conditions.

Granted, winter is not the most ideal time to be working on big outdoor projects like this, but Matt and his dad got to work on it sometime mid-December. They had to pause for a few weeks due to inclement weather, but then the sun broke through again and they were able to finish the job by early January. This gave us plenty of time to put up the stall for our Buck.

Next: the shelter for our wethers, and a huge cleanout of our barn in preparation for the kidding to begin. We may decide to install some birthing pens in the main barn now that we have the space for it. We’ll see.

To see our new setup and to catch up on what I’ve been knitting + some of my goals for 2022, check the video below: