Gettin' in over our head.....

[jwstewar]

That is for sure Brian. The day the one doe gave us quad bucks we were super thrilled, but then the next day when we lost 3 of them we were totally bummed and frustrated and second guessing ourselves of what we had done wrong. We have to quit beating ourselves up so much. Don't want to say we know everything and we can stop learning because there is always something to be learned, but we just have to realize we did the best we that can and know and sometimes things happen.

BTW, Xany that I mentioned in the prior post was done at the two does. Her placenta was coming out in a "bubble" like a baby does, so that is why Monica wasn't sure. That is OK, we are taking our two does and happy. They are 6.xx and 7.xx lbs (I don't remember exactly) and they are up and eating well. They were ready for food when I left work this morning, they were starting to cry.

[jwstewar]

You know, sometimes things just don't go as planned. With the snow/rain freeze/thaw cycles we've had the past few weeks, the yard has been pretty muddy. Last week we needed hay for the goats, I knew I couldn't take the trailer so I just took the truck and got 20 bales. So it had dried out some and I thought I could get the trailer over to the barn, so I went last night and got a load of hay. I think we had about 70 bales of hay on the trailer. So, lets say 3k for the trailer and 50# each, about 6500 lb total weight, so nothing too heavy - but apparently heavy enough.

This is a little bit of low section of our yard that collects water, so it stays a little bit muddy, and then top that off, I have "filled" it up a bit with dirt that we have taken out of the ditch that runs through our property. When I say dirt that is generous, it is more like slime when it gets wet.

So after a couple unsuccessful attempts with the truck and end up against the fence, I had to drop the truck from the trailer and I hooked up with the tractor. I was then able to get the truck and trailer away from the fence with out damage either. Then I decided to take another approach to the barn. Only probably is, with the little tractor there is no seeing behind you. I couldn't tell that I was about ready to run over where I had dug a hole for a barrel for a drain - not the barrel itself, but just the approach I dug (remember I dig holes with my loader so everything is oversized ). The trailer went down. I couldn't go either direction. So I ended up packing the hay to the barn and then let the kids and Monica pack to the back of the barn and stack it. Once the hay was out of the trailer, the little New Holland popped it right back up. It'll be slinging chunks the next time it goes on the road though. For that matter, so will the Silverado.

[bczoom]

I'd say you have a little mud issue there. Hope you have a powerful pressure washer!

[jwstewar]

Originally Posted by bczoom

I'd say you have a little mud issue there. Hope you have a powerful pressure washer!

Actually where the rain hasn't stopped it pretty much washed the trailer and then I took the truck and trailer on a 4 hour round trip last Saturday in the rain. That pretty much washed everything out from underneath. Just a little "stain" on the bottom of the doors of the truck now.

We are adding a new toy to our goat arsenal. Monica is going today to pick up an ultrasound machine that we purchased. That will make it much nicer to determine who is and who isn't bred.

[jwstewar]

Haven't had a chance to get pictures yet. But Monica and I finally poured the concrete for the milk room, storage area, and feed storage area. Didn't turn out quite like I hoped, but not bad either for just the two of us. She has no concrete experience and I've done a couple small jobs. 4.5 yards of concrete was a lot for the two of us in the barn. I really needed 5 yards, but overall it didn't turn out too bad. I'll get some pics.

We have had 33 kids on the ground so far this year as well as going to NC to pic two does up and Indiana to pick a LaMancha buckling up. On the way back we stopped in Bellefontaine, Ohio and picked up a new Alpine buckling. In addition to two 9 month Alpine does we had picked up 3 weeks before.

We had our wether sale last week. We had 12 to sale. Sold 10 of them, should have sold the other two, but we had someone stick us. She told me she wanted two. So she was on our list. Our list became full so we turn folks away. When it came time to pay & pick-up she wouldn't return our calls and didn't show. So by this time, it is getting late and they are getting hard to sale. We managed to trade one for a doe that a kid was going to take as a market project (the dam was bred to our buck and the dam is actually out of our last year's buck, so nice genetics). Hated to see that doe wasted and it was going to be small as it was just born 3/31, so wasn't going to do well at the fair. They got a wether that was born at the end of January and was actually a decent little guy. Already weighing 41 lbs. Seemed like a win-win. Still trying to sell the other one. If he doesn't sell, the kids will tag him in as a back-up and we will butcher him.

Speaking of, we had a doe that we butchered last month. We have used some of the burger from her as well as a roast last week. I just finished the left overs for lunch. It was pretty good. The kids ate it and like it, but they still don't know that they were eating Cami or goat for that matter.

[Doc]

Watch out .....when they find out it could be a BIG thing. If you don't mind me asking .... Do you make money on these goats or is this a 4 H project on steroids?

[jwstewar]

A little bit of both. We haven't made money yet, but I think we are getting real close now that we are getting a lot of the infrastructure in place and we are getting our numbers up. The way things look this year, they should pay their feed bill. Not to say we aren't going to have additional expenses, but that is a major plus to not have to actually put money out for feed. I believe we should be almost $6k in sales this year. Maybe a little more. Certainly not enough to live on, but it is fun. If things go as I think they should, we should see almost $10k in sales next year.

[bczoom]

Sounds like things are going relatively well and picking up for you!

My kids know they're eating the calves they played with but they don't like the reminder of "Hey, remember that white Galloway you were working with when it was a calf? It's delicious, isn't it".

[jwstewar]

Kidding season has finally come to an end. Don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe it was close to 40 kids on the ground by the time it was all said and done. We've only been to one dairy show and one Boer show so far this year. Had 2 goats each get a leg at the dairy show. Then at the Boer show and took a true 50/50 (Boer/Nubian cross) and took first in her class and 2nd in the division in % class. Not bad going against a lot of percentages that are really full blood. Leaving on Friday to head to Harrisburg, PA for 8 days to the National ADGA show. Should be fun. My daughter is taking some kids, a couple yearlings, and one milker, but she has hook up with 3 or 4 of the best breeders in the country to help show their goats. Should be a good learning experience for her, get her some money, and help her get her name out there for recognition. I'm taking the truck with camper and Monica is taking the Suburban with stock trailer. 400 miles each direction. Staying at the farm expo center. No water or sewer hook-ups, so this could be interesting. Have pumps and tanks so that I can pump both fresh and gray water to where I need it to be.

From a barn standpoint. We got an 8x10 metal shed from mom. We glued 1 1/2" Styrofoam to the ceiling and put OSB on the walls. These both help with heat and keeping them from tearing it up. We have our wethers and young bucks in this barn. We also got a deal on 20 12' cattle panels + a gate. This allowed us to expand the does' pasture area bit. Since it is now hot, we are back to having to run fans in the barn. Nice thing is, since the electric is finished we don't have extension cords running everywhere. The other thing that is nice, since the concrete was poured in April, it has helped keep the barn a bit cleaner. We've had a couple automatic waterers for a couple years but we had to run water hoses. These were a pain to keep them from leaking. This winter we found automatic waters on sale at TSC. We got enough to put one in every stall - even though the stalls aren't used much this time of year. Now what has made it super nice, I was able to run PEX plumbing to all of them. No more water hoses running through the aisle and leaking connections. Each water has its own valve and can be shut of and removed from the system with a swivel connection so that it can be drained, replaced, or whatever. I've also got a connection built into so that I can blow it out with air come this winter. I was worried about heat building up in the water line since it is in the ceiling, but it seems like there is enough water moving that it actually stays pretty cool.

Still haven't been able to start the walls for the storage area and milk room because of both time and money. Maybe after the fair we can. Have to at least get the one wall built so that we can get the stall "back". Had to take the one side of the stall down to pour the concrete.

[bczoom]

Sounds like a lot of great progress!

Originally Posted by jwstewar

Still haven't been able to start the walls for the storage area and milk room because of both time and money. Maybe after the fair we can. Have to at least get the one wall built so that we can get the stall "back". Had to take the one side of the stall down to pour the concrete.

I'm assuming your trip to Harrisburg will be via I-70 and I-76. I'm about 55 miles N of your route but I have about 70 sheets of new 7/16" OSB not scheduled for any project if you're interested in any of it (and have the space in your stock trailer).

[jwstewar]

Originally Posted by bczoom

Sounds like a lot of great progress!


I'm assuming your trip to Harrisburg will be via I-70 and I-76. I'm about 55 miles N of your route but I have about 70 sheets of new 7/16" OSB not scheduled for any project if you're interested in any of it (and have the space in your stock trailer).

I've been toying with different ways to go. If I'm reading the online maps correctly and using the toll calculator, it looks like it will be about $35 each way per vehicle in tolls. So about $150 in tolls. I was kind of thinking more along the lines of taking Rt. 50 over to 339 to 68 to 79 to 40 to 81. Has a few more turns I'll have to make, but from where we are is actually a couple minutes shorter - not that 5 - 10 minutes really matters, that can be made or lost with one wrong timed light.

Wow, thanks for the offer Brian. How much are you wanting for it? If we were to stop and get it, I would probably have to put it in the bed of the truck with the camper. We will have the cut gate closed on the trailer so that we can have tack in the back and goats up front. We bought a new tack box, really like it, but it is 5' tall and pretty heavy. Haven't been able to figure out a way to haul it other than the trailer. I could get it in the bed of the truck at home, but can't figure out how to load/unload at shows.

[bczoom]

70 sheets is going to weigh in at about 3000 pounds. It's also going to stack almost 3' high from the bed so it's going to well over the sides of the bed.

Not sure what kind of camper you have but do you have that much room and can you take that much more weight? I was thinking stock trailer thinking it has a 7K+ weight capacity.

[jwstewar]

Originally Posted by bczoom

70 sheets is going to weigh in at about 3000 pounds. It's also going to stack almost 3' high from the bed so it's going to well over the sides of the bed.

Not sure what kind of camper you have but do you have that much room and can you take that much more weight? I was thinking stock trailer thinking it has a 7K+ weight capacity.

Didn't realize you were offering the whole stack. Certainly couldn't take that in the pickup with the camper. It overloads the truck by itself. The stock trailer will be loaded as well. But if you are serious about me picking it up, you aren't that far that it would be a big deal for me to make a trip with the truck and trailer one Saturday to pick it up. After all these years we could finally meet and go out to lunch while I was there.

[bczoom]

Originally Posted by jwstewar

Didn't realize you were offering the whole stack.

That's not even the whole stack.
It's a full banded pallet load from the lumber yard. I "think" there's 84 sheets in the load. I think that's the amt that keeps the load just under 3500# which is max load for a lot of forklifts. I know our forklift struggled to get it off the truck.

I'll PM you my zip code and price/sheet and let you decide whether it's worth the time and fuel based on how many you want/need.

[jwstewar]

OK, haven't posted in a long time. We had a pretty successful show season including the trip to Harrisburg for Nationals, Ohio State Fair, County Fair, and NAILE in Louisville, along with numerous club shows. I couldn't begin to tell you who got what at what shows (my daughter could). Overall a good year, not a great year since we had mainly young stock and only showed one milker (Alaina our very first Alpine and she really isn't show quality).

We have started working on our Tack Room and Milk Room or I guess proper term is Milk Parlor. We really got to working on it over the Christmas break with the "exterior walls" of the room. With the OSB from Brian, we almost got the interior of the tack room done. I plan to make a trip to Lowes this weekend and by the door and a pack of insulation and a little bit of trip and it will be finished so that we can start really getting organized and then I need to finish the electric in the Milk Parlor and start insulating that so we can get the OSB on the walls.

You'll notice the Tyvek is done a little unconventional. A.) Probably wasn't really needed, but we had it, so why not B.) The siding was already on the barn so this is the only way to do it.

[jwstewar]

More Pics

If you look real close you'll see the left section the studs aren't plum. The top plate got flipped end to end after I marked the location of the studs and I didn't notice it until the wall was up. Since it is non-load bearing and this wall was a bit of a booger to get in, it is staying. Only real issue will be the outlet box for the electric will be "crooked" in the box so that it is level.

[jwstewar]

Additional Pics

[jwstewar]

Some More Pics....getting creative with replies, Vbulletin doesn't like duplicate posts

Yes, I was bad on my electric. I was pushing and getting tired. I got to the point I wasn't even trying to line the holes up for the wire, however I could stand and was comfortable is where the hole got drilled. All wire running to the rooms will be in conduit, once in the walls I'm just using plain Romex.

Haven't gotten pictures yet, but we have been using some of the OSB from Brian (BCZoom) including in the walls of the tack room, half the ceiling (one sheet) of the tack room, and insulating a bit more of the actual walls in the barn where the goats are.

Oh, as we were putting the ceiling up in the tack room, I did find out the wall dividing the tack room and Milk Parlor is about 1" off. It is creeps into the milk parlor about 1" on the aisle wall vs. the exterior wall. Wouldn't have been happy in a house, but not a big deal in a barn either. No one will ever know beside you and I

[jwstewar]

Oh and we've wrapped breeding season up once again. Got everyone bred that we wanted except one. And we actually think she bred but aborted. We've been wanting to move her along as she always had trouble kidding. So that we did just that and was honest with the folks that bought her and priced her accordingly.

Kidding season finally kicked off yesterday. We had two does to kid. The first one kidded about 3 AM and gave a buck and doe. The other one kidded about 11 PM and gave two bucks. One more that is due now and then 9 of them due starting Feb 5th I think.

[bczoom]

Looking good!

I see you're going "smooth side out" on the OSB. I think I do it the other way but on walls, it doesn't matter as long as you're consistent so it doesn't show the different textures on the same wall (which may be hard to cover with paint).

Are you going to use plywood clips on the ceiling? I recall you had a pretty decent span between joists but was working on a solution to reduce the gap.