Preparing the Top Paddock

Our top paddock is a bit of a mess. There are old outbuildings, concrete slabs, mangled and disintegrating bits of old fencing, rusting detritus and unidentifiable ... stuff. Also, the top paddock is weed city; there are canola, thistle and blackberry. On top of all of that, the top paddock is sloped on too steep an angle for me to apply ride-on-mower mediation .

At one time, the top paddock was used to breed rabbits (I think for the pet rabbit trade, but it may have been for the meat trade). This was a venture of a previous owner of our property and, from what I understand from our neighbours, the venture failed when wild rabbits got in.

In the middle of the paddock, there is an old (and serviceable) chook shed that is about 3x3m on a concrete base. I plan to extend the chook shed to make feed stalls and a milking stall as well as to generally make the shed more liveable for goats. This will be the main goat living area. Around the goat shed I’ll put in a corral so that I can contain the goats when doing things like milking, drenching and other broad flock tasks.

I’ll be hiring a bobcat to do some clearing and landscaping, but that will probably be in December.