Thursday, June 16, 2011

Sharpening a Shovel

We had to clean out the kidding stall on Monday.

By the time we got all the loose hay out we had to scrape the mat at the bottom of the stall. We really like flat shovels (not spades) for this job.

I don't know if there are many people who sharpen shovels anymore, but it makes the job much easier if the shovel is sharp.

We use a file at a shallow angle to sharpen the shovel. First the back side....
Wedge the shovel in on something higher than the ground. Vet2Be is on the milk stand. Then file away all the rough edges.
Flip it over and do the other side. It doesn't really matter which side is first. The shovel tends to move a little less when bottom side is up. You can see a nice edge on this shovel. That's what you want to see when you are done.
When the stall is this wet we close it off for a day or two and leave a fan running to help it dry out before we put clean bedding down. It helps with the smell, and I like the idea of the goats having a clean, dry stall to lay down in.
Happy digging! (And cleaning stalls!)

No comments: