# Kidding stalls - squeaky clean?



## OwnedByTheGoats (Mar 7, 2013)

I have noticed that a lot of people suggest bleach for spraying walls in their kidding stalls. We do not, because bleach is toxic. My mom is so allergic that she was a mess when she was just using it to clean up something. I cannot imagine what the little babies think of it. Your ideas?


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## ksalvagno (Oct 6, 2009)

I don't clorox but my walls aren't solid. I clean out the straw and always put down new straw. I do clean my warming barrel with clorox. You could always use something like vinegar.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

We have pallet walls in our kidding stalls. I typically don't clean them unless there is a lot of goo on it from the mama's. I think the biggest thing is getting any wet hay out, and try to fluff up the bedding when they go to kid to get the poo on the bottom. when you clean your stall, sift through the bedding, and put clean stuff in the corner, clean it out, then you can lay that bedding back down and put a little fresh over it so your not wasting so much.

We don't get overly crazy with cleaning when a doe is in labor since she's just going to get the stall all icky again anyway <lol>, but try to make sure there is clean bedding for the baby to lay on when it's getting cleaned up by mama.


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## nancy d (Oct 5, 2007)

We use H2o/vinegar solution.


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## jennnaragsdale (Mar 5, 2013)

I just bought something called dry stall which I plan on using for the first time tonight when I'm done cleaning, it's suppose to help with the smell and urine absorbent. I heard great things about it

Sent from my iPhone using GoatSpot


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## KymberLeAnn (Sep 16, 2012)

We have used stall dry with our horses
It's pellets that sort of expand & fall apart knit sawdust, kind of hard to explain, but I know it worked great for the horses!


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## KymberLeAnn (Sep 16, 2012)

Into sawdust*


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## Skyz84 (Jul 25, 2011)

My kidding stall is a chainlink dog kennel with tarps... SO I don't bleach.. But I do keep the stall clean prior to kidding. Pre-kidding the stall has a thick layer of hay down. As SOON as the mom is done I take out all the dirty hay and put a layer of pine down that is topped with a layer of thick hay.

I also catch all the kids and keep them on clean feed sacs or towels until they are pretty dry. Then I put Iodine on navels ASAP once I'm sure they are breathing fine. After having one kid with navel ill I'm OCD about keeping the newborn kids off the ground/dirt.


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## audrey (Jul 17, 2012)

I just keep my barn clean on a daily basis, every stall, goat pen too, no need to do major cleaning or sterilization. In fact, the only kid that has been born here so far, she didn't even get her umbilical dipped because I was out of state and my mom didn't remember to do it. SHe was just fine so I think thats enough proof for me that I keep things clean. I certainly won't be not dipping umbilical on practice, it was totally just an oversight/fluke.


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## adriHart (Nov 1, 2012)

HoosierShadow said:


> We have pallet walls in our kidding stalls.


Oh my. .. I'm sure you are fine but i just had a pallet wall fall and crush my new baby to death. Please be sure they are VERY VERY SECURE. mine pallet walls were fine for 2 months but as soon as I put babies in there the mom knocked the wall over on top of her new baby. So horrible. Sorry to interrupt your thread.


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## Dayna (Aug 16, 2012)

Wow! You guys are hard core. I plan on letting my goat birth in the pasture (with me checking of course). I've got two pastures, and I was going to seperate her a day or two before kidding. But since my goats eat all forage I figured it would be worse for them to take them out of their normal element? And do I need a stall? I was just going to let her take care of her babies as she saw fit. Most folks here do pasture, unassisted births.


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## serenityfarmnm (Jan 6, 2013)

HoosierShadow said:


> when you clean your stall, sift through the bedding, and put clean stuff in the corner, clean it out, then you can lay that bedding back down and put a little fresh over it so your not wasting so much.
> 
> We don't get overly crazy with cleaning when a doe is in labor since she's just going to get the stall all icky again anyway <lol>, but try to make sure there is clean bedding for the baby to lay on when it's getting cleaned up by mama.


Just wondering how you "sift" Do you use your hands or some kinda pitch fork?


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## fiberchick04 (Mar 8, 2010)

I'd say if anyone uses bleach or a bleach product to be EXTRA careful because ammonia and bleach mixed together basically make mustard gas. There have been numerous cases of people passing out and dying because they didnt realize there was Urine in the toilet before they dumped bleach in and it wasn't a well ventilated area. 

When we clean our stalls we get as much, if not more, as we can out and then they make a disinfectant but we use the limestone stuff to neutralize the ammonia. 

If you are at a show please don't use spray lyesol to disinfect your stalls. Lori Harfert of Sweetgoats and I had issues with people doing that at a show and they were not meaning to but try were spraying so much that our goats all started coughing and such because it was in m enclosed barn.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

serenityfarmnm said:


> Just wondering how you "sift" Do you use your hands or some kinda pitch fork?


We use hay for bedding, and use a leaf rake in the stalls. Our goats tend to pick a spot for urinating, so the parts that are not wet, I just kind of fluff the hay up , pick it up on the leaf rake so the poo pellets fall through and put them in the corner. You might miss a few here and there, but that's how I get most of the poo out.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

adriHart said:


> Oh my. .. I'm sure you are fine but i just had a pallet wall fall and crush my new baby to death. Please be sure they are VERY VERY SECURE. mine pallet walls were fine for 2 months but as soon as I put babies in there the mom knocked the wall over on top of her new baby. So horrible. Sorry to interrupt your thread.


Oh wow I am so sorry that happened to you  How did you have your walls? Tied, or ? We've never had that happen and we've been using pallets for almost 3 years now. The ones in the barn dividing the stalls are secure, nailed together & nailed down. But I use them other places for example to divide the creep area and have not had a problem - those are just tied in place, but I check the rope regularly to make sure it's not getting weak and refix it often <from mom's jumping on them at feeding time>.

Pallets are great to use but you have to make sure they are secured well. We use them for everything - we built our barn & barn additions with them, the shelter in the weaning pen is made out of them, gates, etc. lol


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## OwnedByTheGoats (Mar 7, 2013)

adriHart said:


> Oh my. .. I'm sure you are fine but i just had a pallet wall fall and crush my new baby to death. Please be sure they are VERY VERY SECURE. mine pallet walls were fine for 2 months but as soon as I put babies in there the mom knocked the wall over on top of her new baby. So horrible. Sorry to interrupt your thread.


That is absolutely horrid. I am SO sorry. I didn't mean to ignore you either, I promise! I didn't know that there were all of those extra posts on the first page. I am really really sorry for what happened to your baby.


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## hearthnsoul (Jul 5, 2009)

Oh you ladies are much more diligent than me! After birthing we rake out whats there and put in new shavings, that's it. The shaving so i Can see better pee, poop, mucus, blood and all. Make sure all the plumbing is working. But surely not bleach clean, I wouldn't even begin to think to do that it's a barn, dirt floor wood floors on the lift. Even right now we are still in deep bedding method so very infrequently raking out and more slight raking and adding the pee absorber and another layer down. The kidding stall is used by all the goats until someone goes into labor then We shut the door and add the screenings so the goats can't jump over the bannister and swing door and bother mom and babies. Our set up is small, we never intended to have as many goats as we ended up with so quickly, so we are hoping to build out another small barn this spring for expansion.
I would be very concerned about mixing the bleach with the pee factor as well, or bleach in general in with the goats. I don't dip umbilicals either. Moms clean up and they eventually fall off. I guess my thinking is taken from my husbands cue, His father had 400 goats and they birthed out in pastures and unassisted. I always over think things and my husband is the complete opposite, he reigns me in 
Oh and the baby being crushed by the pallet. I am so sorry for your loss, that had to be very devastating. I am always afraid something similar will happen. One day I went out and found a little goatee had some how managed to go head first down Into a birthing pens hay bin, I nearly had heart failure. I cant imagine finding that, so sorry :-(


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## OwnedByTheGoats (Mar 7, 2013)

This is the first time we have done this, but we took ALL of the straw out, and put one bale of straw down with a bag of shavings sprinkled on top. Our stalls are pretty darn big, so that much bedding still is not that much.


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## Axykatt (Feb 1, 2013)

My "kidding stall" is the master bathroom. I just lay down puppy pads, old towels, and Peggy Sue's comforter on the tile. After everything was over I threw it all in the washer, mopped, and put down her spare blanket. She and the babies didn't get moved out to her bedroom (which is the laundry room, I'm not entirely insane  ) until they were two weeks old. 

Now that I'm separating them at night so I can milk in the mornings the babies are back in the bathroom. I guess I kinda forget that they are farm animals and worry that they'll freeze, choke, get bloat, or otherwise expire if left alone.


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## OwnedByTheGoats (Mar 7, 2013)

LOL Axykatt!


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

LOL!!! that's hilarious Grace! You need to get pictures sometime especially of the birthing in the bathroom! 

We use barn lime if the stalls get icky. Pick all the wet stuff out, rake it well, and put down the barn lime. Works really well with strong urine smells.
When I worked at a horse farm years ago, we had 17 mares and foals in our barn & the other barn I worked in had 24 stalls with mares & foals. 
We'd use sweet PDZ in those stalls, and sprinkle the barn aisle with Pine sol in a flower watering can. Not sure if you can use Pine sol in stalls, especially dirt stalls, but I tell ya, that pine sol made the barn smell good and I am NOT a fan of pine sol lol 

I do feel it's a good idea to dip the umbilical cords, but then we don't use puppy pads or any of that stuff. So hay gets stuck to wet babies, and we just feel it'll help protect them from infection.
I used to bring out a sheet to lay them on, but it just gets so icky and gooey. 
Using some clean hay to lay the babies on then toss it out after they are dry works well for us, and is more cost effective. Besides our babies tend to want to move around, so trying to keep them in one place isn't easy lol


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## Axykatt (Feb 1, 2013)

You can see some pics of bathroom birthing on this thread:

http://www.thegoatspot.net/forum/f197/kidding-kid-pics-142647/

We tied an old boot to the door so no one could swing it open on Peg and she couldn't accidentally slam the door and lock us out. You can see blankets and tiles.


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## OwnedByTheGoats (Mar 7, 2013)

HoosierShadow said:


> LOL!!! that's hilarious Grace! You need to get pictures sometime especially of the birthing in the bathroom!


LOL, I think you mean Axykatt, not Grace, right?


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

good ol" vinegar kills the same amount of germs as bleach and is safer : )


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## hearthnsoul (Jul 5, 2009)

Oh love the vinegar idea!


happybleats said:


> good ol" vinegar kills the same amount of germs as bleach and is safer : )


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