Broke out the ol' nanny berry sifter...

[here to stay]

I used to use sawdust as bedding in the winter in the goats' shed and had made a hardware cloth sifter to keep it clean. Basically it was a folding stand that would allow the sawdust to shake through but keep the poop seperated for dispisal. If I didn't 'sift' the bedding would unusable on the second day.

Then I started using exclusively straw, which I had on hand for kidding anyway. The sifter was put away.

Due to a leak at the farm store, they lost a huge stack of straw. It turn into mulch. Since I couldn't get straw from them that trip, I got a bag of 'pine fines' to tide me over.

Now I have been reminded why I liked sawdust for non-kidding bedding. Both straw and bagged bedding are pricey here. The straw however is not really cleanable. I got into the habit of adding a new layer of straw then mucking the whole mess out once a week.

With the sawdust, I use a dog butler to remove wet spots, sweep the remainders into a pile and run it through the sifter. What comes out is a slightly smaller pile of pretty clean sawdust that is rarely replaced but periodically added to.

I love seeing the goaties in deep straw but I know that mostly the clean is only on the surface- that urine soaked straw lurks just underneath. And, while not needing to clean every day as with the sawdust, the mucking out is huge work. The sawdust needs daily cleaning (mostly) but it is fast and easy work, leaving a sense of satisfaction behind.

So do you do anything better? I would do straw if it was cheap but it is not and it creates much more volume of "pre compost" than the saw dust. The saw dust is easier to keep clean but needs daily work. The straw takes longer to decompose but, even though hard work to remove by hand from smaller sheds, can be ignored most days.

[mzgarden]

here to stay, this is interesting to me. Last year we used deep litter on the pregnant girl's stall in the barn. It worked but was a lot of work to get rid of at the end. This year we used a combination -- first half of the stall has their hay feeder, sleeping platform, water, and feeders. Back half of the stall only was deep litter. The girls at 20 days from kidding, and we cleaned out the deep litter, let the ground dry, sprinkled stall lime and started with new straw. My concern is that one will kid early and before I can get her to the kidding stall and I just didn't like the idea of them dropping new babies into that old deep litter. DH has a woodshop and makes a lot of sawdust - we use primarily in the chicken coop.

So now my questions - do you have pictures of your sawdust stall beds and your sifter? With the sawdust, I use a dog butler to remove wet spots, I tried to google dog butler, but am not getting anything that makes sense. Can you describe this as well?

[here to stay]

www.gardeners.com/buy/folding-wheelbarrow/38-706.html

Maybe dog pooper scooper is more typical term. Just a dust pan on a long handle so I don't have to bend over. I use a little broom to brush the wet spots into it and then dump into the garden cart.

I haven't set up a way to post photos here. All the poop sifter is is a pvc frame like a fold up wheel barrow on legs instead of a wheel and hardware cloth instead of fabric. The front part is hinged so it can be hung up out of the way then opened to use. The long handles act as a flexible spring to toss the dirty bedding around inside it as I push on and release the handles , shaking and sifting. The poop then accumulates in the basket and is just dumped after the sawdust falls through.

It has two sides of pcv joined with pcv t fittings to form the handles and legs. The front of the two sides are joined with a u bolt, which allows the handles to be opened for use or folded to store. The hardware cloth is tied with baling twine to each handle so that it forms a basket when the handles are seperated (like the link shows only hardware cloth instead od fabric.)

I think the most important thing is hardware cloth with the appropriate size mesh to allow saw dust through but not berries. It won't work with shavings unless you decide to have the berries fall through and the shavings in the basket but I never tried it. Could be simply done though.

[mzgarden]

here to stay, ok, I think I've got it. Probably going to change over for next year. This sounds much more workable for our small herd. Thanks!

[jangirl]

I would love to do this as well. With the great grand babies, I don't know if we'd get to it daily, tho. I have to send hubby out some mornings to do the chores if they're both up and hungry/yowling. When he's gone hunting, I'm out there at 4 in the morning with my headlamp doing the feeding and watering, then back to fill tanks and do what cleaning I can when the girls nap==IF they nap at the same time.