Skip to main content

 Settling in

Coco and Vanna are selttling in nicely, though they do cry still right about dark. They are in a 10x10 converted kennel for now, while I finish the property fencing. I have done three of the four sides of our acre, and I am going to be cross fencing the back 1/3 for all the animals to graze eventually. We will allow the chicken, the goats and the sheep to graze, but I am on the fence still on the pigs we are scheduled to get in two months.

So, speaking of pigs, we are scheduling getting them on the farm in two months. so pens need to built soon. I am thinking of doing a modified KNF -Korean Natural Farming method of piggery that results in a no smell pen. Yeah, I thought the same thing too. JoAnn and I went through the KNF certification process and when we got the opportunity to visit a piggery with 4 full sized 400 pound sows and found that there wasn't ANY smell other than the animals around them, we were sold. I will need to dig down a bit or find a puka to build a deep base of logs and branches. Then it's mulch and then soil- their method dictates 4 feet, but thats where I AM modfiying the system.
Logs and branches will be of thinner dimensions and the mulch and soil layers will be only a foot for a total of  2 feet. I am too old to have been injured by falling off our pig skyscraper! 
Oh, the digs the goats and the sheep are in are temporary while JoAnn and I come up with a design we like for them. We try not to do Utilitarian if we can avoid it. We know that they may cram together in one shelter but we'd like to do two so they at least can have a choice. We are going to start with this and tweak the design a bit to fit 4 animals. 
Next, Cross fencing so we can get these sheep and goats out in the yard.  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Update

Update Chickens are growing Big news, right? Well, it has been a while since I posted here and a lot has happened. Yes, the chickens have been getting bigger; the Cornish Cross are insanely huge and the Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rock hens are now officially old enough to be called pullets.  Their Foster Moms have abandoned them, meaning they are no longer protective of them and instead are making sure they (the hens) are getting the pullets inducted into the flock's 'Pecking order'. The pullets are basically on their own, though chickens really don't need to be taught much. The pullets are finding a pecking order of their own, fussing at and with each other as it should be in the natural order of chickens. The Cornish Cross are amazing. We purchased them three weeks after the pullets and they caught up in size in just two weeks. At three weeks old, the Cross chicks were taller than the Pullets at 5 weeks. Tomorrow they will be 7 weeks old, and they are...

Coop Build Part Three

Installation Time Or, the real business of Construction Okay, the garage build was prep time for making panels, now is the time I consider that the real building got started.  I didn't take a lot of Photos so it looks like a lot happened, which it did. Making each wall a panel allowed for fast assembly. This photo shows the piers in place and the floor set on them. It was sturdy, but a bit too wobbly for me knowing I had a few more feet of building going up soon. So I then cut (2) 2x4 braces for each pier and screwed them in using 3" gold screws, not real gold, but they are called that. Not sure why other than their color. We then attached the linoleum.  Sure we risked it getting damaged from adding this early, but by placing it under the bottom plates of all the walls, we figured less water penetration into the floor this way. So far so good- no big gouges yet. These walls went up in less than 20 minutes and I was working alone this day. By allowing an overhang...
  Sheep or Goat Feeder We do more than Chickens here and this project is all about our goats and sheep.  This build takes basic woodworking and basic metalworking skills. If you know how to weld and use a saw, you can do this. I have a table saw, miter saw, metal cut off saw, pneumatic tools, drills, sanders etc., but this can be made with a hand saw, hammer, nails, and a drill.   Design: I started with an image of a shed type of feeder that I found on Google and modified it based on what I felt I wanted for my animals. 1.        Less waste. More feed in the animal is better, right? 2.        Covered area. We like to eat in the shade, why not them? 3.        Raised tray. Eating up off the ground means less chance of parasites. 4.        Holds a full bale. Less feeding time means more for other things. 5.      ...