Latestarter's ramblings/musings/gripes and grumbles.

Short boards spliced together make long boards....just sayin.....

True, if you need to double them up to make a 4x4. Not so good with an end to end splice of single "thickness"

Bruce said:

True, if you need to double them up to make a 4x4. Not so good with an end to end splice of single "thickness"

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Yes it is. I slap on a splice board, sometimes on both sides and fill it with lots of screws. They hold. I was gonna say screw them to death.......but, well, you know.......there ARE some smart a$$es on this forum. Not that I would be one...

Bathtub for water -- siphon out or install a drain.

When you cook large meals, freeze some so you don't have to eat all so close. you can MW one during the football game & not miss a play. The sandwich sounded really good.

Posts -- you are doing a GREAT job!!!

So, how's Mel? Haven't heard much about him of late.

Mel's waiting for a girlfriend.

Just wanted to say that the feeder plans from Premier 1 rock. I have built two of them and need a third. Best feeder ever, hands down.

Baymule said:

there ARE some smart a$$es on this forum. Not that I would be one...

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Certainly not!

How are the potential girlfriends perking @babsbag? Another month or so IIRC?

I think they are perking along just fine. She is about 3.5 weeks bred already...goes by fast. I can tell that she is bred, of course there is always the possibility of a false pregnancy but not likely.

Suggestion on the feeder for alfalfa hay. Take a cattle panel or a hog panel. Cut in half to make 2@ 8 ft or in 4 to make 4 @ 4ft. ea. Make a frame of 2x4s and put a piece of plywood down for the "floor" as long as the panel piece. What we did with the first one was cut it in 2 so the pieces were 4x4 but even better is some scrap boards to make it 3x4 ft. The frame part needs to match the piece of " flooring". Then either put legs of scrap 2x or 4x to get it the height you want off the ground. If you make the legs separate then if they rot you just replace them. Now the 2 pieces of cattle/hog panel are shaped like a V and put on the solid board "floor" with solid , (again scrap) lumber on the ends, what we did was make the panels as a separate piece so it set right into/on the "floor". Oh yeah, the frame part needs to be "up" so that it holds the leaves and grain or whatever in , flat on the bottom. What you want is a basic V shape of 2 panels, that has a floor so the fine leaves can't get on the ground, with it being too narrow for them to get up in it and they can't pull the stuff out as easy with the panels and they can't get in the ends to climb all over it. The V shape makes it difficult for them to get in it since there is less room for the body; I know they can balance on a little 2x board when they want.

We did something like that to feed the heifers, with them getting some grain on the "floor" and the alfalfa hay that we were supplementing them with, didn't get wasted nearly so much. Of course the cattle don't climb like the goats, but it was pretty simple and easy to slap together and not expensive. I think the cattle panel would be better than the hog panel, you want the openings to be fairly consistent sized.
Of course, I never had to deal with goats and their horns in it so maybe it wouldn't work. Works like a charm for the young cattle and they can't make a mess of it. As they pull the hay out, the leaves fall on the "floor" and they can eat them too rather than have them on the ground and wasted.
Put the legs under it high enough so that they can reach but not think they have to jump up to get the hay, but still not so low that they try to get their front feet in it to reach up higher.
Yeah, I know goats are not reasonable......
No offense, but after farm sitting for a friend several times a year, who has 125 boer cross nannies and getting the DUMB little kids' heads out of the fence repeatedly, and even the nannies, I don't ever want goats. The sheep are a big enough pain but at least they aren't trying to constantly climb up on everything. The lambs do alot of climbing/jumping but the adults don't do near as much.

Since I don't have a smart phone and this is an old computer, I don't have any way to take pics at this point and show you what I mean. That's in the future I guess, I need to get with the modern world, but I hate to give up my virtually indestructable old flip phone. Have dropped it, raked it into a windrow of hay, run over it with the tractor wheel in the field you name it, and it still works and no cracked/broken screen, nothing.