Preparations Underway!

In managing goats the first time around, the biggest obstacle turned out to be water.  Every day, twice a day, we would haul 7 five-gallon water buckets to a good spot for dumping them, clean the buckets, refill them, and then haul them back to the barn.  If it was below freezing, this included breaking ice out of buckets, bringing the buckets in the house to the kitchen sink, and filling them with hot water.  On occasion, the goats would get out of their pen and we'd have to put them back in.  On occasion the goats would come in the house!  In the summer time when it was hot, I didn't mind getting wet while cleaning and refilling buckets.  In the winter, when it was not quite freezing, I did NOT enjoy cleaning buckets of frigid water and getting my clothes wet. 

I've seen farms with automatic waterers, heated automatic waterers even, and everyone that has them says that they're the absolute best investment they've made in their farm.  With water chores easily taking 2 unenjoyable hours a day, I vowed that I would not get goats again until we were better set up for them, and this would be a non-negotiable point.  Time is too valuable.  We had planned on doing this when we had goats, but there just weren't enough hours in the day to manage the goats and do projects like this. 

After doing some research and checking out waterers, we decided that Ritchie waterers would be the way to go.  Their goat and sheep model is the cheapest of any I've found, and they're still not cheap.  We have opted for 2 waterers, with 2 watering holes each so they can serve 4 pens.  One will serve the doe pen and outside (the dogs go everywhere) and the other will serve the buck pen and breeding pen.

The preparation for this is enormously upsetting, however.  Trenches dug for water and electric lines are pretty messy and ugly.  Electric lines will be used not only for the heat to the waterers, but also for supplying electricity to the barn sans extensions cords!  My milk room will have lights and a plug outlets for the milk machine and fridge.  Lights, a ceiling fan, and plug outlets will be some great additions!  I will be excited when it is all done!  Here are some photos of the prep work!

Found the water line without breaking it!

 Using the buckets to postion the backhoe on the slippery slope!

 electric trench--not quite as deep as the water trench

water line trench as it comes around the barn.  Yes, that's ground water seeping in the trench!  So much ground water here makes drainage in the barn difficult.  It's why we will put a concrete floor in the barn.  It certainly would have been better to put this stuff in prior to building.  Let this be a lesson to you if you are in the planning stages for your farm!

Here is the trench to the location for the second waterer.  We will likely have to devise a section of fence with a roof to keep chickens from perching over it and pooping on the waterer!  I am continually amazed at the roots of Osage Orange (Bodock aka Bois d'arc) trees.  They're nearly as nasty as the branches--but not quite since they aren't thorny.

Here is one of the waterers sitting atop the other waterer still in the box.  The domed lid in the center is designed to keep goats from standing on it, and the reason it's different from the horse and cattle waterers that Ritchie makes.  There's lots of cool stuff under that lid, but I'll write about that later when we install these.  Blogger is taking forever to upload photos so that'll have to be it for now!