Winter farm pictures

With our first cold snap of the season, we are hunkering down here in the Interior of Alaska. Today is thirty below zero in town. Unfortunately I didn't realize that the thermometer I bought last winter only goes down to twenty below. It has been bottomed out for the last couple days, so I can only guess. We usually have a temperature inversion which results in warmer temperatures in the hills, but sometimes the inversion is slow to kick in, as has been the case this week. Fortunately the kids and I have not had to leave for town all week. We've been keeping the wood stove going non stop and cooking and baking lots of good food.

I took the camera along on my morning chore walk the other day. Starting in the picture above is Rose on the milk stand and her doeling Bramble in the door way. This is a view from the middle of the room, with our new wood stove on the left, entrance on the right, all my goat stuff in the back right, goat stands in the middle, and on the very far right you can see a corner of my grain table, where I mix and doll out grain. This is my milk
setup for this winter. Maybe by next year I'll be in the back of the room, where we have plans for a cement floor with a drain and sinks with plumbing.

Up until just a couple weeks ago I thought all the goats were looking really good. Rose and a couple of the other milkers are starting to look a little thin, as are my bucks. I'm feeding the does more alfalfa and the bucks are getting more grain. Maybe we'll be making some more changes in how we are feeding here soon in an attempt to get everyone looking better.

Blue, one of Zinnia's two doelings.

Avalon, our yearling, looking quite well going into winter- maybe overly plump - who will hopefully be kidding for the first time in April.

Heated duck/goose waterer.

Rosie, our friendly goose in front of her indoor shelter.

Hodgepodge of ducks, that we hatched this spring.

Some of our layers, in the front some new black sexlinks that just started laying, thankfully. The egg drought is over.

Ducks drinking warm water. This is through two fences. On my way up to the chickens I turned around and saw them all running to their water, and turned to get a shot. The heater that is in their water takes up 120 watts of electricity. I haul about three gallons of water up the hill daily for these ten ducks and two geese. Our twenty chickens, on the other hand, go through about three gallons every four days or so. This is one of my biggest complaints about the waterfowl this time of year, just too much water hauling up the hill.

Bucks up the hill.

Looking down at the poultry coop. This started out as a horse hovel. Then after dirt work the ceiling was pretty  high. After selling my horse, we decided to use the pre-existing structure and we turned it into a two story dwelling. The bottom shelter has a dirt floor, is smaller and is better insulated. We are thinking of keeping less waterfowl and instead, keeping chickens on both levels.

Every year, I get bitten with a new bug, the goat bug, chicken bug, turkey then ducks then the geese bug. Some bugs I manage to quell. For I while I was set on raising pigs and that has gone on the wayside. This year I have been looking at rabbits, Nubians, Angoras or Shetland Sheep for fiber and different breeds of chickens. I am just dreaming. I don't think I'm going to allow myself to get into any more species this year, but it is fun to dream. In reality, I'm thinking more bee hives and more chickens, less waterfowl. Keep it simple.

Interior Doe Shed

The does have been spending quite a bit of time indoors lately. I am standing just to the right of the entrance. Yin is standing to the left of the interior wall and sliding pocket gate. The outside walls are well insulated but the long wall on the left is currently uninsulated. By next year at this time it should be our enclosed, insulated and heated shop. Right now the structure still needs a couple sheets of plywood, a door, insulation and the wood stove hooked up, for starters. You can see the frost lines on the wall. The area that is not frosty is sixteen inches of insulated floor and twelve inches of solid wood blocking.

 

Here is a view from the back corner facing the door. You can see the frosty flap that they push through to go in and out. Below is a picture of their light source. So far we are just using a regular light bulb, but if we need to, we can just unscrew the bulb and replace it with a heat lamp. We have tried to put the light as out of the way as possible. It is enclosed in a metal basket and the cord is wrapped in wire so if the goats were able to get at it they wouldn't be able to chew the cord. Their is a hole drilled in the wall directly behind the cage that the cord enters through. So far I've just been plugging the light in when I feed in the morning and unplugging it at night. I'll probably put it on a timer and save myself a little effort one of these days. So far I'm pretty happy with our new goat shed. It feels snug and draft free inside. It is noticeably warmer than outside. We keep the heated waterer and feeders outside to encourage the goats to leave their shelter and get outside. I read somewhere that you don't want the barn to be much more than thirty degrees warmer than outside or it will be too drastic a change in temperature for the animals. Also, if our waterer was indoors it would add a lot of humidity to the air.  I encourage the goats to get outside as much as possible. Even on the coldest days, I still feed grain and some hay outside. On a side note, it is a balmy twenty degrees above zero today. So I'm looking forward to getting outside today, and I'm sure the goats and chickens are too.