# Goat droppings are making me crazy!



## WHFarms

I have had two goats (a boy and girl) for about a month now.  They are in a pretty large what I would consider "lot" with minimal grazing as I prepare the 4 acre field for goats ... aka ... tried unsucessfully five times now to make it "goat proof".  Eventually I'll plug all the ways they are getting out.  It is driving me crazy that I have been unable to find a reasonable way to clean up the goat manure!  Having had horses my whole life, and large dogs, I am at a loss as to how to clean the manure in the pen!  :/ Help!  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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## SuburbanFarmChic

Wait until the ground is really hard and use a broom  L.


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## DonnaBelle

If you've only got two a long handled dog poop scoop and rake would work.

We still use one of those to scoop up the poop left on the straw in the barn overnight.  We do that early each am.  Now we don't get every last little nannyberry, but it's good enough.

I sprinkle stall dry every 2 or 3 days on the wet spots.  We also have a large Tek-Supply fan that we run during the day to keep the barn "dryed out".

Our electric bill runs about $200.00 a month for 2 houses, 2 barns, and a similar fan in the chicken house.

I think the fan also helps keep the flies down.

DonnaBelle


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## ksalvagno

the kid rakes that are like a real rake work great. Made by Ames.


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## freemotion

Do you mean clean up the poo in the paddock or in the stall?  I went through the same thing.  You'll get over it!  One of the stages of grief is acceptance, after all. 

You can use a leaf rake in the areas where they poop the most.

I put straw down in the stall to hide the poop and do a bigger clean out every couple of weeks in the spring/summer/fall and let it pile up (adding straw on top or just letting fallen hay pile up....cleaning out the wet area by the door on occasion) and do a HUGE clean-out in the spring.  Lotsa great compost material!


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## Pearce Pastures

We use a leaf rake for the ground berries and a push broom for sleeping shelves.


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## aggieterpkatie

Clean up goat poop?  I don't clean it up.     I'll clean out heavily used areas, like around feeders where the hay gets piled and gets wet and mucked up, and same for in their shelter.  If I'm cleaning those areas and happened to see large amounts of poo, maybe I'll try to rake some up, but no way do I try to clean every goat turd or sheep turd that falls. That would be a very time consuming job.  The chickens do a great job of scratching around and breaking stuff up.  It all decomposes.


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## 20kidsonhill

Sorry, can't help, we don't clean ours up either.  

We add a little bedding as needed to keep pens and inside the barn dry, And clean out barn once a year after the winter.


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## Tapsmom

I'm glad this question was asked.   We are picking up our babies this afternoon and I was wondering this very thing!


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## elevan

I use the same method as 20kids and also have chickens in the field with them to scratch up the poo there.


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## ksalvagno

You will have to figure out what works for you. I clean out my stalls twice a week. I can't leave all that stuff and let it build up. Let it build up over winter and then had to hire someone to help me clean it out. I have to be able to keep things clean on my own. Can't afford to hire help all the time. Plus I went from owning alpacas to owning goats and I'm too used to very clean stalls. I did have to relent on perfectly clean stalls but I still like to keep them as clean as possible.


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## redtailgal

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## crazyland

I don't clean either. They run around an acre of land and I rarely see it! We don't have a barn just little run in covers that they prefer to sleep on top of. In the winter they will have straw inside of them but right now it is bare. So cleaning won't actually happen for a long time yet.


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## Okie Amazon

I use a leaf rake in their pen and add the berries to the compost pile. They rarely go in their "house" during the summer except during rains, but in the winter when they spend much more time in there, I rake it out and put in fresh straw bedding about once a month/every six weeks.


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## WHFarms

Okay apparently this obsession with cleaning up goat poop will go away, but I spent three hours *hangs head* cleaning up goat gifts all the while the billy following me around in the areas I had cleaned and leaving more :/  I found a first attack with a rake, followed by a broom, scraped by a shovel and wah lah, clean area until the goats come over to "inspect" my work.  They have a fairly large pen right now, probably 60 x 20 feet for the two of them with a run in and I let them out to graze around the place when I'm home and can abort the unauthorized field trips.  I don't know, I just couldn't stand to see it all over, so yeah :|


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## arabianequine

I use a rake and turn my rake over and use the flat side. I don't let it pile up. I find it cleaner for them and less work for me to keep up on it.


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