It's about 3 weeks until we're expecting the first kids to be born, which means it's time to spring clean the girls' quarters! We had accumulated almost a year's worth of composting-hay flooring which we cleaned out with the help of the excavator.

*The digger, having a break for morning tea, sitting atop a year's worth of hot composting floor.*

The floor was then transported to the top of one of the paddocks, where it was wet with water and will continue to compost down. In about a year's time (after it's been turned over and wet down again at least twice more), it will be spread over the paddock, and so provide a nitrogen boost. It's a great way of recycling carbon on the farm, and puts all that goat poo and wee to good use too.

We love our compost floor - it acts as a great insulator from the cold concrete flooring of the shed, and it's also quite comfy for the girls to lie down on (so comfy, that during milking season, we often have to wake them up in the morning). It's a sensible way to utilise the hay that the girls don't want to eat (they pick out the best bits and toss the other stuff around - often onto the floor or ground). They stay warm and dry - the combination of poo, wee and hay starts the hot-composting process (seriously, it's well over 50 degrees C deep in the litter), and the hay is sitting on a graduated floor that has a drain in place so any wet stuff filters down and is able to exit the shed into the effluent system. We open up the roller doors when they're out in the paddock, and the wind and sun dries it out a little more. Then, before they get tucked in at night, we scatter more hay to ensure a clean and dry layer is on top.

*The 2015 compost pile, turned and wetted on several occasions over the course of the year.*

*The finished pile from 2016! Approximately 26m x 3m x 1+m - that's a lot of poo and hay!*

*Clean floor - now to get it comfy again....*

*5-star accommodation, if you're a goat!*

*The girls rush in to check out their new bedroom.*

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