How Often Do You Clean Your Concrete Floor

[uncleotis]

We live were it gets cold all winter long, like below zero at times, then again it can get in the 40's like today.

How often do those of you that live with climates like this and have goats that sleep in a barn with a concrete floor completely clean out the bedding?

I had read on a goat list (not this one) I used to belong to that some people that have concrete floors just keep adding bedding, mainly for insulation from the cold concrete. I'd done that for several years then this year I've got a doe that now has gangrene mastitis. Our vet was out for her and I was asking him about doing this, he said in theory it sounds good, but really it's not. OK, I can understand that now as I was doing some reading and read where mastitis likes it where it's warm, moist and something else, can't remember now what that other one was.

Yesterday we got some barn lime from the feed store and put that down after I cleaned out all the bedding. Actually I'd did a complete bedding clean out after my vet left the other day. What I cleaned out this morning was bedding from yesterday and over night then sprinkled the lime down and put dry bedding on top.

My question is this, how often do I need to clean out the bedding completely. With using the lime am I able to just add dry bedding on top for a couple days or do I need to clean it all out completely every day. Remember I've got the concrete floor they have to be bedded down on.

[Backfourty,MI.]

What about putting pallets topped with plywood in there bedding areas to keep them off the concrete, then put the bedding on the wood & clean as needed.
We have dirt floors but I still use the pallets.

[mpete]

How about putting a couple bales of straw next to each other?

[uncleotis]

Backforty we have no access to pallets.

mpete, I'm not sure what you mean about putting a couple of straw bales next to each other.

Doesn't anyone have their goats on concrete floors during the winter that can help with my question?

[Bearfootfarm]

How deep is your bedding and what do you use?

[Minelson]

Originally Posted by uncleotis

Doesn't anyone have their goats on concrete floors during the winter that can help with my question?

Well mine are on concrete floors and we have about the same weather. I have been watching this thread because this is my first year doing the deep bedding method. Last year I cleaned daily and had a couple stall mats on the floor..plus they have a table, hut and spool they can get up on.
I have not cleaned it out yet...I am under the impression that it should be done at the end of winter sometime...to keep it warm in there. It does keep the barn warmer I noticed. Even when it was 20 below it was 9 degrees in the barn! That is reason alone for me to continue with this method next winter. Heck of a lot easier too.
What I do when not doing the deep bedding is just use enough shavings to soak up urine. Then every day I go in there with a bucket and a cat litter scooper and scoop up the berries and urine spots then add fresh. The stall mat is nice in case they want to sleep on the floor...but sometimes they will "choose" to sleep right on the concrete. 99% of the time they sleep on the table and spool. I only gut it out a few times a year. I also use barn lime.
How many goats do you have and what do you use for bedding?

[LomahAcres]

We have concrete floors in our barns. I do much like you were doing, starting in Nov/Dec or when it starts to freeze every night, I pile in the straw, and keep piling until about April/May when its warm enough to hall it all out. I add DE and lime to the bedding each time I add straw - about once a week. Our winters are cold, we have about 2 weeks in dead winter when it's down to -teens/20's and the high is 0. We also get mounds of snow, and a lot of times I just can't get a wheel barrow through it. The amount of straw I'd have to pick up and put down each time to clean it weekly would just kill me. As long as the top bedding stays clean and dry we haven't had any problems with the girls.

In the summer I just keep the floors swept, no bedding. The girls don't seam to mind laying on the cement in the summer, it's also MUCH cooler that way. We also wash everything down with the power hose and bleach once in the spring, and once in the fall. I've tried pallets, carpet covered pallets, leaving the straw in bales, and haven't found anything to work better.

Last year we moved our bucks out to dirt floor shelters, we were doing the same with them in the winter - piling in the straw, but they have been having skin problems which I think is related to the dirt floors just because of the extra dust and depth. Hopefully this summer I'll get a new building for them with the cement floors. I don't like the hassle of hauling out the straw but the bucks were healthier on cement then dirt.

I'm always looking for a better or 'perfect' floor conditions for my goats, and just haven't been too happy with anything, they all have a down side, and our winter snows don't help. I have herd of using pine shaving instead of straw and may experiment with that, just didn't before because it will cost about twice as much.

[uncleotis]

Thank you both LomahAcres and Minelson for the helpful information on how you bed your goats down on concrete for the winter.

How many goats do you have and what do you use for bedding? I have 7 does and a buck, of course he's in his own shed and pen now. The doe with the mastitis is also in a pen by herself. For bedding we use straw and brome grass and like the both of you just kept adding dry bedding on top, but we didn't know about the barn lime. My husband wondered about the DE, now we know to also use that.

This morning after reading what the two of you do we decided to do just that, add barn lime and DE before putting down more bedding.


Thanks again so very much.

[uncleotis]

Originally Posted by Bearfootfarm

How deep is your bedding and what do you use?

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ignore your question. Until the vet came for Friday (girl with the mastitis) the bedding was probably 3-4 inches deep and we use straw and brome grass for bedding them down with.

[Minelson]

Mine is about a foot deep at the deepest end. I would take a picture now but my camera is broke. the picture above is from last fall when I started the deep bedding. I also use DE. No set schedule on when I use it...just when I feel like it I sprinkle it on top of the bedding, concentrating on where they lay down. I use it for mite control and I like it that they lay in it and get it on their legs.
I only have 3 mini's...I would think with 7 goats it would be hard to try to get all the berries and urine out on a daily basis without taking out a lot of bedding. That is one of the reasons I haven't succumbed to the peer pressure (here) to get more goats! lol!!

[uncleotis]

I would think with 7 goats it would be hard to try to get all the berries and urine out on a daily basis without taking out a lot of bedding.

It was, I tried that for a few days after the vet was here and I'd cleaned the whole area of the deep bedding. That's why I was wondering what others with concrete floors do.

Thank you again for helping me out.

[mabeane]

I have used the deep bedding on concrete this year but am not sure I like it. It always seems wet. I cleaned the kidding pen today after a sad kidding (lost quints, doelings) so I could put the next one to kid in that pen. It had not broken down as much as I thought it would and I will rethink just deep bedding next year.

[Minelson]

Mine seems dampish too. But really even without doing the deep bedding everything feels a bit damp this time of year. And our barn actually leaks through the foundation and we have streams running through it during the melt. Luckily we sit on and incline and we are blessed with torrential winds to dry things out fast. I open all the doors to help. I have heard that you are supposed to kneel down on the bedding for a bit and if your knees feel wet then it's time to add more bedding. That is a little too wet for me....I add shavings every day..the amount depending on the weather. I add hay for bedding every couple days or so. Maeane, what kind of bedding are you using?

[LomahAcres]

Originally Posted by uncleotis

I would think with 7 goats it would be hard to try to get all the berries and urine out on a daily basis without taking out a lot of bedding.

It was, I tried that for a few days after the vet was here and I'd cleaned the whole area of the deep bedding. That's why I was wondering what others with concrete floors do.

YES, if it were easier to clean everyday I would. I have 7 min's in a 12x14, 14 standards in a 12x36, and 2 sets of 3 bucks in 10x10 shelters - plus kid huts.

I do the kneel down in the bedding too - but also smell it. If your pen is too dirty for you to want to sit in there with your goats then it's too dirty for them too. My bedding will work it's way up to 1 - 1 1/2 feet deep by spring. I like the top clean layer to be deeper when it gets cold out - the girls like to dig little 'nests' in it to keep warmer.

[uncleotis]

Mabeane I'm so sorry to hear about losing the babies. We put our doe down today with the gangrene mastitis, we didn't want her suffering any longer.

I will do the kneel down and smell also, along with opening the barn up on nice days. Mine like to dig little nests when it gets really cold out also. It's supposed to start warming up now. YIPPEE.

LomaAcres I also live in Nebraska. :-)

[sammyd]

We run around 8 or 10 goats in a 10x24 pen. Basically one stall of a 4 stall garage.
When the kids show up we have a separate 8x14 pen for them.
Both are on concrete and are cleaned twice a year. We do not sanitize the crete after cleaning, just fork the bedding out and scrape down with a shovel. Then I run 10 bales of bedding through the chopper aimed into the big pen and fork some to the smaller pen. In the big pen we feed heavy and expect a bit of the grassy hay to make its way into the pen. We rarely have to supplement with extra bedding but have plenty on hand if we need it. We don't add lime or anything else.

We do not use any sort of post dip on the girls when milking and have never had even a flake show up on a milking doe.
We have had one case of a doe getting mastitis when she was dry.
One case out of the 5 or so years we've been doing this I'll accept.

Our pens are dry never wet. I can lay down in them and be reasonably sure I will rise dry and not too dirty. If you have wet pens you are doing something wrong.

[Minelson]

Originally Posted by sammyd

Our pens are dry never wet. I can lay down in them and be reasonably sure I will rise dry and not too dirty. If you have wet pens you are doing something wrong.

How does it stay dry when they urinate in there? What kind of bedding are you chopping...straw?

[sammyd]

We chop straw or old grassy hay for the initial 8" or so layer. The rest is long hay from the feeders or long straw if needed. I find it easier to fork out the bottom most packed and wet stuff if it is chopped.
the urine soaks down and the top layer stays dry. By the time we clean in spring our pack will have gone from a dry fluffy 8" original pile to over 2' (in most places) of packed moist stuff. (I should add that the top inch or two is fairly dry and the stuff gets wetter down deeper. Basically from a light fluffy top layer to a dense layer of saturated bedding.)
I typically will fork at least 8-10 spreader loads from the big pen in spring and at least 5-7 in the fall.
We are in the "barn" at least twice a day even when everybody is dry and keep an eye on the condition of the pack. But like I said, most times the waste of hay will be enough to keep the pack in decent shape.
Adding more goats would probably cause me to have to add bedding, I once put 5 in the small pen and had to add bedding daily to keep it dry. Even a large kid load will need a little extra bedding.




I have learned that the bedded pack will not really make compost. Compost requires turning and air.and in the bedded pack there isn't a lot of either. You may have some small amount of composting in the middle layer where the stuff can still "breathe" but the lower layers are pretty anaerobic and won't break down the same as compost.
Even the big dairies that use this system have come to the same conclusion. Some of the grazers I know will run pigs through the pack in the summer when the cows are on pasture and their constant rooting will get the pack composted nicely.
Usually we spread our pack on whatever land we plant to plant to corn. But the top dry layer works well to cover our potatoes.

[Minelson]

Ok I get it now I was thinking I was doing something wrong because it is wet on the bottom (frozen actually) from the urine going down. My top layer is dry. Since this is my first year doing this I'm paranoid about doing it right Thanks!

[uncleotis]

sammyd, chopping sounds like a very good idea and I can see why the chopped would absorb better, but we don't have a chopper.