Cleaning out the building

I have been trying to clean out our farm buildings. This includes putting away heat lamps and unused poultry equipment, breaking-up and removing the sheep pack from last winter, and fixing the pens that damaged a bit with a skid loader in June (it was a very tight fit).

I now have all of the sheep pack removed and have begun to build new roosting areas for the group of laying hens out on the pasture that I am ready to bring inside and train to day ranging. The whole livestock space is being reworked for this winter. I kept the sheep inside much of last winter help heat the building for the poultry. This year, the sheep will spend much of their time outside and I am not going to feed the large amounts of supplemental corn I fed last year because it encourages hoof growth and creates more work for me.

The pasture chores take me about an hour and a half to two hours in the morning and around and hour in the evening. This is not an insignificant amount of time out of each day. Yesterday I failed to push things along because I split a tire on the truck when I clipped a trunk and had to change it out in the pasture. Needless to say, it is not difficult to derail an entire day. I just hope to continue to make progress and I will keep you posted and get some pictures up when it is all done.