Devonviolet Acres

Devonviolet

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I've been having trouble uploading photos, and today I was finally able to do it again. So, I wanted to show y'all that we are finally able to chain our goats out to browse on our too tall grass. They aren't making huge progress though, because they are being so dainty about how they nibble at a blade of grass at a time. :lol:

This is Leon on his maiden voyage. He was totally in heaven! Initially we bought only one 15' dog tie out chain, because we weren't sure how the screw in anchor would hold in the soggy ground. It turned out the screw grabbed the wet clay (which is under 6-8" of sandy loam soil) and is holding tight. So, we went out and bought 3 more chains ($5.88 at the local farm store) and tie down anchors (on sale at Harbor Freight for $2.99 :p)
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Here is Zan enjoying his browse, while the dog's look on through the fence. You should have heard the commotion when we started taking the goats out of the livestock pen!:ep they DID NOT LIKE us taking THEIR GOATS out of the pen!:eek: although they did settle down once the were hooked up th the chain, browsing contently. :p
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This is Little Guy. He is picked on most by the other goats (heat butted away from food and attention by us), and therefore most timid. We are working to let the others know he is special to us, however, he tends to not let use near him, and us a challenge to get a leash on to take him out to browse. The first time I took him out, he screamed, like I was killing him. :barnie:lol: But, as soon as he realirealized there was grass to eat, he wasn't afraid anymore. :lol:
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Leon browsing. This shows how long the grass is and how pretty his coloring is. :love
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Leon and Zig browsing after getting all four chains hooked up. The challenge was to not overlap browsing area too much. The area they are browsing is a bit limited, because w have discharge sprayrs for the aerobic septic system, and thy can't eat that grass.
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Leon and Zig again . . .
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Ridgetop

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Make sure to check on them at least every hour to make sure they haven't wrapped a chain around a leg, or gotten tangled. If you out each one in an area that doesn't overlap the others' area, you can move them again to cover the uneaten areas in between later. Great pasture. Why can't you use the aerobic sprayed grass for forage? I never heard of that type of septic system - what does it do? Will you have to cut and remove the grass in that area? What a waste of pasture. What is the reason?
 

Devonviolet

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@Ridgetop - we can see the boys from the living room windows, if we go in the house. But, for the most part we only put them out to browse, when we are out there with them. We never leave them out if we leave the property and their chains can't get intertwined. We also take them a bucket of fresh water to siphon up, so they don't get dehydrated. Sometimes they drink and sometimes they don't.

Aerobic Septic was new to us when we moved to Texas. Since we have a LOT of clay here, water doesn't percolat down into the ground, like it does most places. Here on our land we have 4-8" of Sandy Loam on clay. The water tends to sit on top of the clay. :eek: :barnie

So, this is my understanding of what they do. They set up 3 tanks.
1. Solid sewage waste which gets broken down (somewhat) by bacteria. Waste settles to the bottom of the tank.
2. Water from tank 1 flows into tank 2 where floating small particles settle.
3. Cleaner water is filtered (I think) and flows into tank 3. Pool Chlorine tabs are added to tank 3 to kill bacteria. Resulting "clean" water is discharged onto the lawn via 2-3 (we have 3) sprinklers.

We have been told you cannot spray this discharge on food for human or animal consumption - probably due to chlorine and or left potentially untreated bacteria. Many yards have 2 discharge sprayers. We were cursed with 3, which means less available growing area.:barnie :th

So, we have to mow the discharge area separately, bag it and it goes out in the trash because we can't put it in the compost pile either. :barnie GRRRRR!
 

OneFineAcre

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The land doesn't "perk". That's why a traditional system with leach field will not work.

The issue is the nitrogen content in the grass is too high for forage use.
 
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Ridgetop

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Thank you for the explanation. We have a septic system, and we have clay too UGH! However, we also have decomposed granite here and there throughout our clay and shale. We had to drill an overflow for our septic system. We went 40 feet down and hit a strata of decomposed granite - Hooray for us! DG percs great.

Thanks OFA - I understand the too high nitrogen content for forage. But DevinV: I don't understand the ban on using it in the compost pile. If the nitrogen content in the grass is too high for forage, why can't you use it in compost? Most purchased soil additives are high in nitrogen which is what vegetables, and alfalfa leach out of the soil. Sounds like using an ultra rich nitrogen grass, mowed and chopped, would be ideal for a compost pile to add nitrogen to the carbon biodegradables like leaves, shavings and straw (animal bedding). Unless there is a law against using it because it is from a human waste disposal system, I would think that grass watered by your filtered water would be safe. The main problem would be that if the filtered and sprayed water is chemically treated to kill bacteria it might have the same effect on your compost pile, killing the beneficial bacteria needed to compost. Is that why? I know that some people won't compost horse manure right after they worm because they say the wormer kills the good bacteria and would affect the compost pile. ???

It sounds like a horrible system - can children play on the grass where the aerobic sprayers spray? Is it safe for you to wlak on and mow?
 

Devonviolet

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Those are all good questions @Ridgetop. The only one I think I can answer is that you are probably correct about not using the grass watered by septic discharge spray since it comes from human waste.
I wasn't aware of the resulting forage grass having too high nitrogen content.

I asked DH, and he said the human waste aspect is probably correct. Since people may not be consistent with the monthly chlorine tablets, there may be times the spray is too high in chlorine or too low - leading to higher bacterial load. We met one lady who forgets, so puts 6 or 8 tablets in every six months. :ep She is a prime example!

Also, to clarify . . . the second tank isn't filtered. It is where air is bubbled into the water. A regular septic tank is "anaerobic" meaning without oxygen. In that system the solid waste breaks down slowly. In the "aerobic" system, air is bubbled in to break down the waste that floats into tank 2 with the water from tank 1. By the time it gets to tank 3 the remaining waste has broken down and settled. The water in tank 3 should not have any solid waste, but still has bacteria, which the chlorine is supposed to kill. I suspect the spraying, as it discharges, releases the resulting chlorine gas, as it doesn't burn the grass. In fact the grass, in the discharge area is nice and healthy/green.:rolleyes:
 
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Ridgetop

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Well, at least you have nice green lawn in the sprayer area. It is too bad that you can't get some use from it but a pretty lawn is nice, and will helop the house stay cooler in the summer with evaporation. We are having such a drought here that we are not allowed to water any lawns and they are all dying. We can only water on certain days. We took out our lawn and mist if the landscaping several years ago. We put in weedcloth and wood chips and put the grandkids' play yard where the lawn used to be. We have our veggies in raised beds with soaker hoses this year. 2 years ago I did the whole drip system on timers which was good for a while. It is very labor intensive in the vegetable garden since most veggies are annuals and some I plant 2x a year in California. Peas, and any of the cabbage family have to be winter plantings. Redoing the drip system each time is a lot of work for not too much return. Especially since we can't use as much water now. The water department is cutting the amount we can use by a large percentage. That is fine, but since we have been cutting back for the past year, this new enforced cut may send us to the laundromat! There is only so much you can cut and still water your livestock, flush the toilets, and live. If you have already been saving water, it is difficult. It is fine for the people who haven't cut back on their usage, now they will have to stop watering every day but most of us that have ben careful will suffer with the new cutbacks.

You are lucky you will have a nice green lawn. At least you can put your deck chairs there while you watch the goats play. You can probably put in some flower beds too, just make sure you plant nitrogen loving plants.
 

Devonviolet

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I'm so sorry you are having to cut your water usage so severely. It sounds like it has gotten really bad where you live.

I have lived in areas with drought conditions, and it is miserable. When we left California, in December of 1977, we had had drought for 3+ years. It started raining the day we drive to the airport. That was the beginning of the end of the drought.

In 1981, the EX, kids and I lived in the NW corner of Ft. Worth, TX and had 100 conseutive days over 100. I'm not sure if we were in a drought. But, that was one hot, dry, miserable Summer!

When DH and I moved back to TX, to be close to DD and her family, last June, we went back to visit my old neighbor's, who I had stayed in touch with. They had had drought for something like 5 years (?) I was sad to see that almost all the trees had dried out, no one took the out. They just let the fall over, dead in the yards, over fences and against houses. The grass had turned brown. and it was all really depressing.

When we came to Texas, lakes were well below normal levels - many by 10-20 feet. It was depressing to drive across bridges and see nothing but dirt. Now, there is massive flooding. There is actually a lake on the Red River (on the Texas/Oklahoma border) that is 20+ feet OVER normal levels. The last time we went over the Red River we mostly saw sand.

One of the reasons we chose to move to East Texas, was that the normal annual rainfall is 46". Where I lived West of the Metroplex, it is 32-36".
 
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