Row Row Row Your Goat

[paintpony]

The barn is now flooded The goats and sheep are up to their ankles in water. I've asked hubby to go by the farm store and get as many bags of shavings as can fit in his tiny car on his way home. I don't believe I've seen this much rain in so short a time in quite a while. Now I'm concerned with foot rot. I've ordered the cattle vaccine for it in hopes to ward it off. If they do get some foot rot can I give the vaccine and antibiotics at the same time? and the sheep are pregnant so will that make a difference?

[Alice In TX/MO]

Pallets with boards on the top.

[Cannon_Farms]

yep, we have pallets with very narrow spacing between the planks, narrow enough a kid food cant get stuck (but now I said that) and put in front of the barns and make a bridge for them to go over in higher traffic areas.

[Cannon_Farms]

if you have a dryer piece of land you can connect a few cattle panels together in a hoop house and make a gate out of another panel for a temporary dry shelter.
Some cow vaccines can cause nasty reaction in goats and they may not be effective. Frequent hoof trimmings make everything easier and safer.

[Backfourty,MI.]

I agree with Cannon Farms & Alice, get pallets, they work great. The goats love to lay on them to lay around on plus now it will give them a place to keep their feet dry plus their either free or cheap here.
Skip the vaccine & get pallets.

[Doug Hodges]

I burn pallets at work. I need to haul them home to my barn.

[nehimama]

I feel your agony! My barn also gets flooded when we get incessant rain like we have gotten recently. Praise God, it didn't rain for days & days this time! The standing water has gotten ankle-deep to me in the past - the whole barn! For the goats' lounging/feeding pen, I've allowed the waste hay & manure build-up to, well, BUILD UP. I dress it with fresh bedding as needed, but now they have higher ground, so to speak, during flood season. They have an area to stay dry, lounge, and relax in comfort.

Over time, I've collected pallets, have them laid down, 3 high, to store hay and fire wood. Pallets work! Good luck with your water management!

[wintrrwolf]

When my new doe barn got done it rained and rained and yes flooded inside about ankle deep. We had happened to have had some gravel delivered for the driveway and we started piling that in as floor base, since then I have allowed the excess hay to stay with fresh shavings every week, I was worried with the rain we had and all the snow melting but they are way above the water line outside. Come spring I'm gonna be breaking my back cleaning all that out...pallets would have been better

[paintpony]

Pallets are out for me, hard to come by as someone buys up all the used ones and refurbishes them and then resells them. I did put 3 bales of shavings in the buck kids pen and 2 bales in the milkers pen. They are now dry. The sheep don't have a pen in the barn, they use the front as a run in. The sheep have wasted hay on the ground. However, the ground outside is so saturated with water it's trying to suck my boots off. On a positive note, my brand new 300 gallon stock tank is now overflowing with rainwater.