Barns, Bedding, Compost, and Soil
For most of the month of December, I was preparing for kidding season. With 50 pregnant goats there was much to prepare for. Although one barn was completed last year, a second smaller barn was being constructed and had to be erected. A new feeder was ordered and required assembly upon arrival. All barns needed bedding material purchased, spread, and kidding pens required assembly too.
Barn space is critical for goats at kidding time. Too much rain, or freezing temperatures when the does are giving birth can wipeout an entire kid crop. Unlike lambs and calves, baby goats can’t regulate their body temperatures for the first 24 to 48 hours of life. Heat lamps, dry bedding, and individual pens assure each doe can identify her kids and they stay warm enough to survive for the first couple of days.
The barn arrived just in time, but because of all the rain and because the assembly crew’s 4-wheel-drive was broken on their delivery truck, we had to carry in all the pieces of metal barn to the barn site. Also, parts that required welding on the barn couldn’t be finished either. Despite the challenges, the barn was erected and made usable. I have found an excellent manufacturer of livestock equipment who builds the best feeder I have seen. Unfortunately, they are located in Maryland and shipping is very slow these days. I had to wait to assemble the barn before I could order the feeder because I needed the exact dimensions of the barn and these metal buildings can vary in size depending on assembly decisions.
Bedding material is not cheap, but is surprisingly important for herd health and sustainable farming. If the goats don’t have a dry place to get out of the mud in a wet winter they can develop “hoof rot”, or “scald” an incredibly annoying bacteria that causes inflammation and separation of the hoof wall and irritation of the skin between the goats toes. Although not deadly, hoof rot causes limping, discomfort and stress in the animals infected by the bacteria. I had it the first winter I expanded my herd size with new purchases and I don’t want to deal with it again, so lots of dry bedding material is required. I buy shavings in bales by the pallet load. They come from the same industry harvesting our overgrown pine forests, so they are a renewable resource that would otherwise contribute to California’s mega fires.
While earning my degree in sustainable agriculture, I learned a lot about the complex interaction of livestock, to compost, to healthy soils. So, I put down dry shavings to keep my goats warm, dry, and healthy. The goats eat and poop and pee on the shavings. The dry shavings absorb the nitrogen and organic material from the goat’s waste. I have to put down another layer of shavings to keep them dry. As I continue this process of layering in shavings, the mixed material on the bottom begins to decompose. Decomposition creates heat that warms the goat’s barn during the cold winter months and “suspends” this nutrient rich organic material in the shavings. A typical winter will fill the barn with about 2 feet thick of composting shavings.
In the spring, I take that material and spread it on my rocky soil in Rough and Ready. Because of the compost’s organic nature, the nitrogen releases slowly into the soil unlike commercial chemical fertilizers that release quickly. Because the organic material absorbs water and holds it longer, the nitrogen doesn’t run off into our waterways. This slow, complex, interconnected action builds healthy soils that support a vast and diverse soil life. It is very similar to the process that created the great plains where huge herds of buffalo consumed the grasses, deposited their rich waste material to fertilize the soil, then moved on giving the grass a recovery period.
Does this process sound familiar? It should, because we are doing the same thing here in Lake Wildwood. The goats consume the plants to keep us fire safe, enrich the soil with their waste material, and come back next year to begin again.
Well, so much for December. January, we begin kidding season and I should have more interesting goat tales.