There are three things I do every day in the barnyard. Feed my animals, love my animals, and pick up my animals’ poop.
Some days I build things. Some days I repair things that are broken. Some days I scrub stuff that is dirty.
But mostly, it’s the first three. Food, love, poop.
Brandy is waiting patiently in the morning sun. She wants to help with the chores…
Feeding is oh so rewarding. “Oh LADY! You’re here again! With FOOD! Thank you thank you thank you”. Love…well…that one makes me swoon. I love them and I know they love me. It’s like the best thing ever. Then there’s the poop.
As those of you with chickens know, they poop a lot at night. I’ve got a board underneath their nighttime roost that catches all of that. Quick scrape in the morning, problem solved. Pig? Let’s just say it’s obvious and easy to deal with. I don’t really want to draw you a picture. But goats? Oh, man, goats are master poopers. Little jellybean-sized poops. And they walk and poop. So it’s everywhere. EVERYWHERE, I say.
But here’s my favorite (?) part. I think the goats believe their pooping makes me happy. Really. I believe this.
Here’s why. I take my handy-dandy rake and shovel into the barnyard after morning feeding time. I start raking up goat poop. The goats come close, and watch. I give them all a pat and a kind word, turn my back, and keep scooping poop. Because that’s my job.
Behind me, those four loved and loving goats must be thinking, “Look! She wants the poop! She’s gathering it so diligently! She MUST WANT MORE!” So as I scoop, they get busy and poop. Even more than I scoop.
All I want is to make the Lady happy.
I scoop the poop from the shed down to the grass, turn around, and I’ve got four goats looking at me with the most gorgeous goat eyes…and poop everywhere I just cleaned.
Whaaatttt? We did good, didn’t we?
They gather round me and rub against my legs. I give them more pets and rub their ears because they love that so much. I lean on my rake, look back up towards the shed at all that poop and laugh.
Every morning, this is my routine. These are my funny, silly goats.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never pooped in my life.
I’m over here delicately eating this bush and looking gorgeous. I’m a little offended you’d even talk about this.
This is my life. And I would not trade it for anything.
(Shared at Backyard Farming Connection, Tuesdays With A Twist, Maple Hill Hop, Clever Chicks Hop, Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Saturdays, From the Farm Hop, Old-Fashioned Friday and Little House Friday)
You made me laugh this morning! Poop patrol is a big part of my routine in the morning as well. Mine is the chickens – the coop (incredibly messy every day!) and the area where they get their first thing in the morning treat of scratch. I go around the yard and treat area with my dust pan and scoop twice each morning gathering up their donations. If I didn’t, it would be impossible to avoid the poopy mess while making trips to the hen house to gather eggs during the day. It is also a time to visit with the ladies and talk to them. Like your goats, I believe they think I would be disappointed if they didn’t leave those donations. Thanks for the morning chuckle!
Beautiful life . . . and an amazing gift for writing. Your posts make me smile – and laugh out loud – and happy!
My life is similar except it’s four dogs that I’m cleaning up after morning, noon and night. 🙂
My life is similar too, except in addition to hens, I have two geese. I try to think on the bright side. All that poop gets scooped into my compost pile, and we are able to grow great vegetables with that compost. When I’m in the coop, I don’t think of myself as cleaning up poop, I think of myself as mining nitrogen! We are thinking about adding another animal to our family, and one of the considerations, is what animal has the best manure for growing vegetables. After much research, it turns out chickens are the best, so I will happily get some more chicks next spring. And maybe a lamb, or two, or three…
Hmmm, I wonder if you could train them like a dog to only use a certain part of the yard? That’s what we always did with our dogs. Made it much easier. 🙂
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Haha! Funny you should think of that! First, I would need to teach them to only go outside (not in the shed) then in a specific spot in the barnyard….hmmm. That might be over my animal training abilities 🙂
What a wonderful post to read is AM. Made me chuckle. I scoop poop, too – at the local zoo. I am a docent and frequently do my volunteer hours at My Barn – an animal contact area filled with an assortment of sheep and goats. It is one of the most popular parts of the zoo because you can actually touch the animals. And those critters loved to be touched, scratched, and stroked. A couple of the littles pygmy goats will jump up on the benches, lean against you, and offer their hoof for you to scratch between their toes. Snuggling with a little goat! As I interact with zoo visitors, talking about the wonderful animals, I am often also scooping poop with my broom and dust bin. It is amazing how fascinated young children are with poop – often have a gaggle of kids with me – they enthusiastically point out the nearest stream of “jelly beans” for me to scoop. Would love to have my own goats – not even a remote possibility in my community. Dogs and cats only. And a limit in numbers of those. But I can have a nice big garden. It is good.
Poop Patrol is therapeutic, perhaps they know that? After all there not just cutie pies, I hear goats are smarty pants too.
That they are! 🙂
Aw, if it weren’t for poop what would we do with ourselves all day. 😉
Oh, that’s so true 🙂
Thank you so much for my laugh of the day! 😀
I once was in a parade as a pooper scooper, following a group of people who were horseback search and rescue folks. We dressed up like clowns and when one horse would let loose, a few of us would run over to it, squat down to examine it, make exaggerated nose plugging mimes, do a little dance around it, then one of us would ceremoniously scoop it up and put it into a finely decorated wheelbarrow! We had a blast! Thanks for bring back my memory!
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Sounds like my days and I wouldn’t trade it for anything either!
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Enjoyed the post, but must say I’m feeling rather odd-woman out here. I only clean my coop poop once a year!! Granted, it’s a job I dread, but it seems much more tedious to clean up every single day – I simply can’t imagine doing that. Anyone else?? Yeeks. Feeling negligent. I will say that a winter with fifty birds leaves a HUGE project for spring. This year I have only 15, so the pile will be pretty tame. Guessing your coops are pretty tidy! Hm, you’ve got me thinking…
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Haha! Well, while I scrape the poop board daily, I also dread the “big” cleaning job. But at some point I can’t tolerate the dust and the cobwebs!