Can I Pick your brains ?

[NChemungGuy]

I want to improve my goats little barn and would like to pick your brains for ideas.

What they have is built on to a hillside, think Adirondack lean to style, open in the front and elevated a bit with a wood floor. I keep the floor well bedded with shavings and some hay in the winter, however it's a bear to clean out either mid winter or even spring, and I don't like the idea of the moisture, both for the sake of the floorboards or for the goats. I am thinking of taking out the florr entirely, and doing deep bedding in the winter on the ground, where the moisture and all the broken down manure/ hay can go into the ground. Or, I was thinking about some kind of grate floor which would allow the urine and droppings to fall through, but then it would pile up and attract flies.

Any ideas how I can improve this situation ? It doesn't seem to bother the goats, but it's bugging me.

I'd post pics, but the site says I can't post attatchments.

Chris

[Alice In TX/MO]

You upload your pics to Photobucket.com, then copy the url for the IMG and paste it on here.

That said, I vote for dirt floor.

[NChemungGuy]

Yeah, I'm 98% sure I'll go with dirt too.

[Minelson]

How many goats do you have? I find that do a daily cleaning is better than waiting and having it turn into a huge job. But I only have 3 goats

[Natural Beauty Farm]

Dirt floor and deep bedding with pine shavings, biggest you can find. (NO cedar)

One of my helpers kneeled down to hold a doe for me and asked what kind of floor heating system I used. After I realized he was serious I started to laugh and grabbed a pitchfork to show him the "heating system" in one of the kidding pens, by now it is 3 feet deep and composting so well it stays dry and warm on the top. We put a thermometer in the "floor" and read 130 degrees about 2 feet down and 74 near the surface. Let it snow, the girls are nice and warm. Come spring I'll have three pigs in the stalls turning it over for me and the best garden around.

[HappyFarmer]

I'd also remove the wood, go with the dirt. Does it slope away toward the outside?

HF

[NChemungGuy]

Yeah the ground does, so I don't think drainage would be a problem. I was already looking at what I need to do to take out the floor this afternoon.

[wintrrwolf]

Gonna be building mine with a dirt floor. Just figured with my options that would be the best way to go.

[deineria]

Dirt floor vote from me, too!