Hurricane Preparedness Part 2

Well, I hope you have at least made a start to plan for when a hurricane comes to town. Don't overdue you prep for your animals at the expense of your personal and family plans in the event of an evacuation. You need to get your "stuff" in order so you can get out if you need to. If you have taken the basic steps to keep your animals safe, you need now to focus on YOU and YOUR FAMILY. Your animals can be replaced, not you family members. I personally would not stay around to "protect" my animals in the event of an evacuation. I would get out of Dodge!

Here is another good tips in the event of a hurricane. Do not lock the animals in the barn in the event of a hurricane or tropical storm. Always have a way they can safely get out of the barn in case the barn gives way or blows away. The animals will do ok in the rain and wet. During Hurricane Charlie only one or two head of cattle did not make it through the storm. I would safely say the none of use have a hurricane proof barn. So make sure if you keep them in, because we all know goats do not like the rain, make sure they have a safe escape route or two in the event the barn does sail off. If you have horses, halter them with your phone or address in the event the fences blow down. I saw a few horses during Charlie that were spray painted with the owners phone numbers. Never try to keep a horse inside during a hurricane.

Cool heads and rational decisions will help you during an impending tropical storm or hurricane.

Be Smart

g

Hurricanes and Corn

With the Florida hurricane season only a few days old, it is time to review some of the things you can do to get your barn and animals ready...just in case. It is predicted that at least three names storms will hit our state this season. So let's start our list:

1. Make copies of all you goat paperwork; registrations and all other important paperwork relating to you goats. Put you files on a CD or DVD data storage disk and off your computer. Put all that information in a waterproof container and in your "must take" waterproof rubbermaid container in case you have to evacuate.
2. Take identifying pictures of all your animals; goats, dogs, etc. Put them on disk and print the photos out to put in the same container as above.
3. Make sure you have all your animals identified; tatoos and microchips are the best. This will help you find you animals if you have to leave without them. BTW the pet friendly shelters will not take goats.
4. Water...the most important thing for our animals. When the power goes out, will you be able to get water? Now is the time to store as many containers as possible that will hold water. Clean out that big horse water trough and make sure it can hold water. The goats cannot reach it to drink out of it, but you can scoop it out into a smaller trough using a bucket.
5. Don't think about stockpiling feed. Let the feed store keep it for you. Hopefully their store will suvive a good blow. If you old barn blows away so will your feed. In the least it will get soaked and be usuable.
6. Make it a habit now to throw away the junk around your barn and house. They become deadly projectiles during a hurricane. Old pieces of fence or pieces of wood you were saving for that project you will never get to will bite you in the butt later if you don't take care if it now.

Well that should get you started. More on hurricane preparedness in my next post.

Corn...the basis for all our feed is going through the roof. Who is paying less than ten dollars for a bag of goat feed out there? I guess no one is. That the ethanol proponents for this mess. It is driving up the price of corn. If you do your homework you will find that corn based ethanol is not the answer to our fuel problems. Corn based ethanol is difficult to store and transport and we cannot produce enough corn for the automobile needs of the United States and feed our livestock. We just don't have the farmland to plant enough corn at the expense of other food
crops. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is the world's largest producer of corn based sweetners and corn products. It has been a decent stock trade if you got in early with the ethanol craze, but that has been the only good thing about this almost universal cry for ethanol. I say, do some research on your own on ethanol production and you will start to get alot madder about our current feed prices.

Well...time to sit and watch the rain clouds slide over the house... 60% tonight...the grass is growing again!

g