Amy it's exactly what I did this year. I have a mote, you have to either jump over it or walk through it, to keep the flooding water, mostly that comes off the roof, but my barn is on the down side of the highest point in the county, so we do get runoff from just the ground slope. So I had my nephew dig this big ditch all the way around the north, east and west sides of my barn, so the roof runoff, runs off right into it, it then disperses the water around the barn and out to the pasture, it works wonderful. With all of the dirt he dug out of the mote I had him throw it towards the barn. I dug out all the way around the north and west sides of my barn and put glavanized flashing into the ground and up the wall about a foot, screwed this in, back filled it and then used the motes dirt to fill it up about a foot more. I then got a load of sand and filled the barn in. Don't get sugar sand, which is what I got, it has taken months for it to really pack down, and I do leaf blow off sand on my slab twice a day after milking. Once the barns are bedded with winter all of that will calm down.

I definetly would pack it down with dirt, but the top layer should be sand to help with moisture. Couse none of this is easy to clean...right now the sand is so packed down that I can use my leaf blower to blow the nanny berries into a pile and rake them up without loosing much sand. Other than sand to brush off, the girls are soo much cleaner this year!

Oh I also keep the water troughs near the mote, so if a automatic float fails and sprays water and floods anything, the water only can go in the mote and not my barn. Vicki

 

We used bank sand in one of our pens and then someone said that mortar sand was better so we tried it...I like the bank sand better! The mortar sand is good for urine draining but it is difficult to rake out the goat berries....so it would be a personal decision...do you want to rake out the goat berries easier? Then get the Bank Sand...if you want better drainage, then go with the Mortar Sand...

We also have the sand higher inside the pens and it gradually slopes down and out so no standing water after a heavy rain.

And with either chioce, they are low on dust, so when the girls get to being frisky, no clouds of dust in the air!

 

Thanks for the replies.

 

If you have some muscular help available, you can rent a vibrating compactor & pack your fill, rather than waiting for it to settle & firm up. This works best for fill that has some clay in it, like the bank sand we get here in SE Texas.

Tom