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Pile of Kittens posted:Careful, I'm sure you know this because your wife is a horse lady and all, but if you take a horse from a winter diet straight to new spring grass, they can founder and be lame forever. I'm sure you wouldn't move the horses without her permission, but I wanted to mention it on the very remote chance that you would, and didn't already know about that danger. Foundering is dumb and horses are built really stupidly in certain ways. Whoever invented the term "healthy as a horse" was a goddamn idiot. Hahaha. Yeah I'm enjoying the way they find new and interesting ways to cost me money. I let her decide where to put them for the day as I also am still learning about land management as well as horse diets. I know they were eased into grazing as well as a new diet. I believe they also get some kind of supplement to help as well. I just follow instructions and try to ask pertinent questions so I can not sound completely dumb when the vet, farrier, hay guy, or her friends are around.
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Apr 25, 2016 07:03
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| # ? May 6, 2024 07:24 |
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Suspect Bucket posted:Did you ever get the mudpit turnout addressed? I may have some insight, as I've spent the last year addressing drainage issues at the farm I work at. It's crazy what a little ditch-digging and sand does to transform muddy areas into dry ones. Our pole barn used to get a small creek running through it every time it rained. Now it's snug and dry during even the hardest rains. Not yet, though the warm and sunny weather has gone a long way towards improving the situation. I really need to rent or buy a trencher. Throw that on the ever-growing list of poo poo to buy, hah.
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Apr 25, 2016 13:45
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Noise Complaint posted:Hahaha. Yeah I'm enjoying the way they find new and interesting ways to cost me money. You're so good.  I give way too many fucks about random internet animals. You're also living my childhood dream, before I realized I love living in the middle of the city and having no back yard.
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Apr 25, 2016 14:49
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Pile of Kittens posted:You're so good. I know the feeling.  Speaking of random internet animals, Sam is becoming quite the helper dog. He loves having all this space to run around in. He respects the other animals and is quite the ridiculous pup. I mean cmon. Look at this face.  No real updates today but I wanted to post this pic and comment how incredibly nice it is to come home to this. 
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Apr 26, 2016 00:18
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Noise Complaint posted:Not yet, though the warm and sunny weather has gone a long way towards improving the situation. I really need to rent or buy a trencher. Throw that on the ever-growing list of poo poo to buy, hah. Nah, sometime all you need is a mattock, shovel, gravel, and time. If you can get a good idea of how your land flows, you can pretty easily dig a shallow ditch and divert a major percentage of water away into sacrifice drainage areas, like low-lying lawns or swamp or woods. Digging a small pond can also be helpful, but you need to put it in the right place and will probably want a digger for that. What's the layout of the property like? I'm working on getting my knucklehead to respect other animals. She loooooves to chase chickens and goats and anything that moves. We're working on it.
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Apr 26, 2016 02:24
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Suspect Bucket posted:Nah, sometime all you need is a mattock, shovel, gravel, and time. If you can get a good idea of how your land flows, you can pretty easily dig a shallow ditch and divert a major percentage of water away into sacrifice drainage areas, like low-lying lawns or swamp or woods. Digging a small pond can also be helpful, but you need to put it in the right place and will probably want a digger for that. What's the layout of the property like? Here's a very basic layout, oriented north.  The entire property from north to south has a slight downward grade, including the muddy turnout. The sand ring has drainage dug to the north of it, the drainage runs all the way to the east of the sand ring and follows the property line all the way to the main road where it joins the road drainage ditch. There's also drainage dug on the western side of the dirt road running all the way down to the main road.
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Apr 26, 2016 14:57
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So it drains to the road ditch? I would just dig a nice little 2ft deep trench along the south edge of the mud pit, then dig a channel down to tie in to the road ditch. Put leech pipe on bottom, then a layer of gravel (1's and 2's are good if you can get them for a base layer, then finer tillings on top), then a layer of sand, then replace the dirt and top with grass, but mark the area so you remember not to drive over it or park the mower there or whatever. Or you can dig a dry well, that would work too. What's the soil composition like?
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Apr 26, 2016 15:05
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Suspect Bucket posted:So it drains to the road ditch? I would just dig a nice little 2ft deep trench along the south edge of the mud pit, then dig a channel down to tie in to the road ditch. Put leech pipe on bottom, then a layer of gravel (1's and 2's are good if you can get them for a base layer, then finer tillings on top), then a layer of sand, then replace the dirt and top with grass, but mark the area so you remember not to drive over it or park the mower there or whatever. It's deep, dark soil, no clay, not sandy at all, it's classified as USDA Prime Farmland. I haven't had the composition tested quite yet, however.
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Apr 26, 2016 15:12
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Noise Complaint posted:It's deep, dark soil, no clay, not sandy at all, it's classified as USDA Prime Farmland. I haven't had the composition tested quite yet, however. Daaang. Nice. But ditching and french-ish draining should go a long way towards improving the mud situation.
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Apr 27, 2016 01:14
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All the more reason to prioritize a tractor. Sure you could dig that poo poo by hand, but tractor. I put a french drain in my driveway to reduce the washout at the bottom. I was going to dig it by hand because all i have is a loader on my kubota. Took me about ten minutes of digging before i said gently caress it and just ended up using the loader. It worked pretty well considering the rocky clay bullshit that passes for soil at my house.
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Apr 27, 2016 15:14
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I had the local extension service come out and look at my pastures - evidently I'm buying a sprayer for the tractor, and I should have treated with grass safe herbicide like, a month ago. Estimated cost between various treatments and purchasing a sprayer, $1-1.2k. Aren't horses great?
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Apr 27, 2016 15:22
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angryrobots posted:Aren't horses great? .......Neigh.
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Apr 27, 2016 16:51
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Been crazy busy the last month working on the farm, and unfortunately lost my crazy awesome grandmother a little over a week ago so I haven't gotten back to updating this in awhile. I figured I'd at the least do an image dump because everything is quite beautiful right now. So spring is awesome, legit everything is in bloom, and nothing is soggy and muddy anymore! We have some gorgeous flowers growing pretty much everywhere on the property.     Everything that was formerly a dreary brown mud pit is now exploding with green, even the horse turnouts that were heavily abused.  The chickens are really filling out, and in fact we were given a big black cock to watch over them, and he's been doing a fantastic job. He even takes care of the ducks!    I borrowed some heavy equipment to clear out the planting area, turned the soil, and put down all the seedlings I had planted. I have to get some better pictures of my work but I'm very proud of this. I also found a secondary shallow well for irrigation, repaired that, and found all the underground pipes to the various outdoor taps were still good to go, which means I don't have to haul water around anymore!  My wife and I took our firearms safety course and we were gifted a hand-me-down ..22 and 12 gauge, which I'm pretty happy about.  We also went and picked up those two goats mentioned previously, Grasshopper and Luna. The horses won't eat most of the crappier plants the goats are completely at home devouring. We brought them home in my wife's new to her car, including going through a DUI checkpoint, which made the cop's night.   Sam and Ellie are doing extremely well, with both happy to be off leash on the farm, which makes me very happy.  Ellie is slowly morphing into the  emote. Anyway, I hope to make a more extensive update soon with some plans. Especially with some pictures of the large horse turnout that had been completely destroyed. All it took was a bit of drainage and some grass seed and it's doing wonderful now!
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Jun 2, 2016 15:24
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Goats are the best. You're gonna get more.
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Jun 2, 2016 18:09
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Noise Complaint posted:
GOATS! Awesome. What cuties. How did you end up doing the drainage?
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Jun 3, 2016 01:36
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Did they breathalyze the goats?
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Jun 3, 2016 07:43
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angryrobots posted:Goats are the best. You're gonna get more. We're already looking at bringing another home tonight that a neighbor wants gone. Hah. Suspect Bucket posted:GOATS! Awesome. What cuties. How did you end up doing the drainage? So you're going to laugh, but there was already drainage for the street. It was filled with dirt, leaves, branches, rocks, etc. I just took a day and cleaned it out and while the property still has swampy areas. It's much better during rainfall. I was able to plant grass seed in the large horse turnout area now that they graze in the pasture, we lucked out and got some AWESOME weather for the grass, and now it's rooted and the turnout looks great. I figure by next year it'll be mature enough to actually put the horses in there.
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Jun 3, 2016 18:23
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My wife brought home another goat today and this one needs to be milked. 
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Jun 4, 2016 23:39
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Noise Complaint posted:So you're going to laugh, but there was already drainage for the street. It was filled with dirt, leaves, branches, rocks, etc. I just took a day and cleaned it out and while the property still has swampy areas. It's much better during rainfall. also, your hands are gonna get hella strong from goat milking. Take it easy at first, don't rush or push yourself, take aspirin beforehand. Enjoy delicious milk and cheese and butter.
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Jun 4, 2016 23:55
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Noise Complaint posted:I'm coming from a southern New England perspective, so I should definitely clarify. The town I live in is "farm" rural vs undeveloped rural. While I do have neighbors, the bulk of the town is small to medium sized family-owned farms. The vast majority of the routes in town are still dirt roads and there's little to no non-agricultural industry. I'd say it qualifies as very rural (for Connecticut) but not remote. I'm about a 20 minute drive from the nearest Dunkin' Donuts. That might as well be in Timbuktu as far as New England is concerned. Hah. im in middlesex county in CT and the dunkin donuts location must be wrong, i live in a town of <11k people and we have 3 of the fuckers in a 2 sq mile radius
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Jun 10, 2016 09:40
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I really loved the pic of the goats in the car. Can we have more goat and horse pics please?
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Jun 10, 2016 13:07
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Nostalgia4Butts posted:im in middlesex county in CT and the dunkin donuts location must be wrong, i live in a town of <11k people and we have 3 of the fuckers in a 2 sq mile radius That's how they do. The secret of Dunkin' Donuts is that they aren't great doughnuts. They're just everywhere, and exist in density to make them a habitual stop.
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Jun 12, 2016 04:47
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True story. My wife went through Dunkin Donuts drive through on a horse. They did not even flinch. Tonight is real fun. One of the goats got out and into an azalea bush so we medicated and gave charcoal and such and we're checking on her in intervals while about 20 coyotes circle. Both my wife and I are walking outside armed. I've shot a few rounds and hit one of the coyotes and my wife shot 2 rounds and didn't hit anything. I knew I signed up for some poo poo when I got a farm, but sitting in a lawn chair next to a possibly dying animal with a rifle across my lap to defend it was not in my mind at that time.
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Jun 12, 2016 06:51
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Dang man sorry to hear that. Hope it pulls though. loving coyotes So I guess you have some bushes to pull up now. =/
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Jun 12, 2016 13:30
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WHAT'S YOUR AM REPORT SOL-JUR, WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THAT GOATLY
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Jun 12, 2016 16:50
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Noise Complaint posted:I knew I signed up for some poo poo when I got a farm, but sitting in a lawn chair next to a possibly dying animal with a rifle across my lap to defend it was not in my mind at that time. Hard core. Fuckin azaleas though. Tear them out and plant blueberries instead.
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Jun 12, 2016 17:04
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Grasshopper made it through the night. We had no coyote problems after 3:30 or so so I was able to get fresh air into the barn. I think it was the amount of noise she was making that attracted them, it was really sad. She made her way out to the field this morning and my wife just ran to Tractor Supply to get some fluids, syringes, and a few other things so we can help her out a bit. I gave her a bit of subcutaneous pain reliever and a bit more charcoal this morning. I am very very optimistic.
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Jun 12, 2016 18:44
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Noise Complaint posted:Grasshopper made it through the night. We had no coyote problems after 3:30 or so so I was able to get fresh air into the barn. I think it was the amount of noise she was making that attracted them, it was really sad. I am not sure what kind of fencing you have, but I have found 5 wire electric effective at keeping goats safe. My wife and I have 5 acres fenced in with a 10 joule charger. I sunk 4 8' ground rods and also used the existing barb wire for a ground. Coyotes, stray dogs, and our cat won't mess with it. Even the local deer have learned to stay away. It also helps that one of our geldings really hates dogs. If grasshopper is up and eating feed/drinking again she/he will probably be ok. Some of ours got into white snakeroot last year and survived. It's when they are down and refuse anything that it's big trouble.
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Jun 12, 2016 20:58
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Many goat prayers for grasshopper, bah'men. In lieu of an update from Noise Complaint, here's a picture of our very happy goats just released today into a couple acres of woods at the back of the property behind my pond that we just got fenced in. They (and I) are very happy that they will spend the hottest couple months in the shade, doing what they love most. (And clearing out the unusable mess we've got back there). 
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Jun 13, 2016 03:17
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Happy goatz! We lost Grasshopper this morning. We had given her some probiotics and a bit of pain reliever the night before. At some point in the night she kicked the bucket. Too late for me to harvest the meat. Burying a large animal is hard, and it seems like an animal gains about 3 times its body weight when it passes. The intramuscular pain reliever and questionable time of death kept me from harvesting the meat, as well as the poison from the Azalea. What a goddamn waste. RIP Grasshopper
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Jun 14, 2016 01:02
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How much did the goat cost you? I have no idea what the going price for "A Goat" is.
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Jun 14, 2016 01:04
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Sorry about your goat. Be sure to give them B vitamins as well whenever they stop eating. As far as cost goes, that depends on the breed, pedigree, sex and who's selling it. We have some bucks that I expect to get $60-100 for as meat goats at auction, a normal (we have saanens and Guernseys) milking doe is $300-1000 depending on a lot of things. A decent pedigreed breeding buck can go for $500-1500. For a pet, I would sell a weather (castrated male) for about $50-100.
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Jun 14, 2016 01:28
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Sorry to hear about grasshopper  If coyotes are a big problem in your area you might want to look into getting a livestock guardian dog, especially if your planning to expand your herd down the line. A good LGD is worth it's weight in gold and depending on your area, it shouldn't be too hard to find a good working litter on craigslist.
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Jun 14, 2016 17:49
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So sorry to hear about Grasshopper also.Ausrotten posted:If coyotes are a big problem in your area you might want to look into getting a livestock guardian dog Donkey.
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Jun 14, 2016 23:36
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Guard donkeys are neat in theory but they're much less effective than LGDs
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Jun 14, 2016 23:51
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So what you're saying is that he needs a guard llama?
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Jun 15, 2016 05:44
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Noise Complaint posted:Happy goatz! Do you not have any woods to just drag her to
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Jun 16, 2016 22:10
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He's already got a coyote problem. Feeding them will make it worse.
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Jun 16, 2016 22:50
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Needs to make a proper hunting party
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Jun 17, 2016 00:21
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Shoot more of the coyotes, they cause less trouble when dead. I one-shotted a squirrel off the swaying branch over the bird feeder last weekend. The others still haven't learned, but small amounts of lead should train them too eventually.
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Jun 17, 2016 00:28
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