The barn was finished mucking on Sunday afternoon, thanks to the help of three friends who did the final push. I lost count of the truckloads of manure I hauled over the last three weeks. It was a huge job over many days. Deep pack pedding works well to keep the animals warm in winter but you pay for it in the spring. I need to start mucking out in March and April versus June. Yesterday I moved everything out of the barn and power washed it out and then gave it a good bleach rinse. Now I will let it dry for a day or two and then white wash it with a goats milk, lime and salt mixture.
I moved the new barn cats outside as well and put a tarp over their cage. (They will be released after all this barn chaos settleds down.) But I didn’t realize I put them under the gutter spout for the barn and they got flooded in yesterdays downpour. Poor traumatized things.
What became obvious when I was mucking is that the barn is going to have to be renovated. Wood floors have deteriorated, walls are loose and crimbling. This will give me an opportunity to rework the floor plan so it is more oriented to goats (not horses) and open enough so I can get a tractor in for the clean-up.
While the barn is mucked out, there are two mucking jobs remaining: the chicken house and the shed off the back of the barn. I’ll start on the chicken house after the barn is whitewashed and put back together.
