Our does have a nice house with rubber mats that's worked well enough so far, but I've been reading some posts about using the deep littering method for the barn floor. We are welcoming a buck and his companion wether to our homestead soon, and we are preparing a house for them. I saw Rachel's comment about the composting of the lower layers of deep littering helping to keep the goats warm in winter, and I like this idea. But is there a limit? We are in western Massachusetts 3 miles from the Vermont border, winters get cold here and we get a lot of snow. Will deep littering work for the barn floor in this climate? Or should I get them up off the floor?
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That's what the husband is for:-)
A friend of some friends of ours recently purchased a dairy with 50 French Alpine goats in New Hampshire. The husband was away for a month on a business trip and we heard that the wife was in desperate need of some help with the goats for a weekend. We volunteered to go along and help out. When we got there we learned that our task for the weekend was to drag 40 4ft*6ft rubber stall mats out of the barn, scrub them clean, bleach them, muck out the stalls and then when the mats were dry drag them back in to the barn. Needless to say, mucking out the stalls was the "fun" part. Dragging those mats in and out was an absolute killer. We'll never forget that weekend!
Rose Stuart said:
it works but better lift some weights over winter so when spring comes you'll be able to clean it all out lol
Ditto on everything Julia said, and yes, you can use it over rubber mats. We use deep litter over the winter, but we clean stalls regularly in the summer when it's hot.
Thanks Julia. So can I also use the deep litter method in the doe's house where I have the rubber mats down? Right off the top of my head I can't see why not, but I thought I'd ask and check.
Julia @Woody Glen Farm said:
You live in the perfect place for this method! If you lived in a warm climate it would not be good! This method works because the composting hay and poo create heat that helps warm them. My girls never lay in the straw when it's warm out but stay warmer down in the straw when it's cold. The deeper it gets the better it works! The same goes for my bucks who have sleeping shelves off the floor. If it's cold they are down in the deep straw.