MOOOved The Bovine

I've kinda felt sorry for the Blind Calf ever since we got him. Not because he's blind, but because of all the stuff he had to negotiate around in the pen.....

It is sorta like watching a "pinball" game - only in SLOW motion. He'd bounce from one thing, over to another, back to the first, etc, etc.

He was really racking up the points.

I decided to finish up moving the water tank so it would be in a spot where the goats and the cows could drink from it.



The rocks are so the goats don't have to stretch to get a drink.

Then, even though it's not totally done yet, I figured that the calf shed was done ENOUGH for them to move into it (although neither have actually been IN it yet, as far as I know...).

I do know, that it is supposed to get down into the 30's tonight, and breezy, so they MIGHT use it.

I took Belle out to the pen first. She just wanted to get away from me, so I let her lead herself right where I wanted to go. I had her on a short leash, so I was RIGHT behind her. She kept moving because I was getting close.

The Blind Guy was easy, I just put a rope around his neck and called him as I walked out the gate. I think he's faking the blind part, though - he found the feed pan right off.



I even managed to do this without goat intervention (of course, I put them in another pen and closed the gate...). They made a mad dash to the fence after I opened the gate and they noticed the two calves out in the pen, though. Hopefully none of them have scuba gear and are willing to swim the water tank to get in with the cows....

I figured out what I have into the shed and roof for the water tank today - money wise. It was easy to figure the tin and lumber - all of that came from sheds on other farms in the area - for free.

Nails were a BIT harder to figure. I used ones that I bought - at a farm sale. Some were new, some were used - ALL were cheap. I bought two lots of hardware for $4. Everything was already sorted into coffee cans. When I finished loading them, I had over half of my pickup bed covered in coffee cans - some two deep.

I estimated that my $4 bought about $250 worth of nuts, bolts, screws, nails and miscellaneous hardware. Not a bad purchase. I used a lot of nails but, using my purchase price, I came up with something around 20¢ worth.

Material wise -- the whole shed and tank roof - cost me two dimes....

I still have a bit more to do but, I'm trying to keep the total cost down to under a quarter...