# Goat Barn Design **Diagram Added Pg2



## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 19, 2011)

Okay, we are getting ready to build that new goat barn. My current goat house/shed will be the future buck house/shed, lol.

So I'm leaning toward corrugated metal. My horse barn is not shaded (metal) and does get hot in the summer, but it's hot outside. My horses usually hang out under the trees on those particularly hot days trying to catch a breeze. 

The goats will have lots of shade with trees galore and pasture beyond the trees. So metal versus wood and I want a 9 x 15. That will give me a 9 x 6 milk room and them a 9 x 9 barn. So how big is a kidding stall? I will eventually keep kids in there while I milk the moms. So this needs consideration. I'm planning on a concrete pad  under the milk stand with a drain, installing a sink and electric. The barn is close to the water line from the well, but not close to the electric :/. So that's a ditch I will regret digging. I "plan" on having no more than 5 or 6 does and 2 bucks. I currently have 2 ND does almost a year old and a 5 week old buck. 

Thanks, Melissa


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## ksalvagno (Jan 19, 2011)

I'm gong to say go as big as you can afford. You build a barn and find you can always use more room. We built a 40x50 barn and thought that should keep us for a long time but since adding goats, I could use more room. Another thing to consider is an overhang off the barn to "extend" your barn. Then if needed, you could temporarily enclose the overhang.

My kidding stalls are 3x9. Mainly because I'm using corral panels and the short panels are 3 feet and the regular panels are 9 feet.


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 19, 2011)

I have a couple of pig panels. They are 3 x 16, I was going to cut them down to 5' so I can double them in height. Would 5 x 6 be good enough?


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 19, 2011)

May be I need 12 x 15. I could make my milk room 12 x 6 and stack hay in the back part, hmm. By the time I'm finished it'll be bigger than my house, lol.


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## ksalvagno (Jan 19, 2011)

I would think a 5x6 kidding stall would be fine. My kidding stalls are temporary so as soon as kidding season is over, I will take the panels down.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jan 19, 2011)

our kidding stalls are also temporary, we use plywood panels with brackets at the ends to put them together with rebarb rods. This works great. We had or kidding pens 8 by 4 but we decided this was taking up to much room and just didn't need to be that big, so we are going to recut some of the boards so the stalls will measure 4 by 6. We like that the boards are solid, the does seem to enjoy being alone with the kids.  

We don't put our does in the kidding pens until after they have kidded, We feel it is less stress on them since they have such strong herd instincts. Once and a while if we are going to be gone for a while and it is a younger doe we might put one in just incase she kids while we are gone. 


we have a small coral area attached to the barn, with all fields extending from this. we are able to bring in all the does and close up the coral, allowing the does to come in and out of the barn, but not be all over the field during kidding time. 

We have inside the barn the stalls set up with just three sides or attached in open triangles around the barn so the goats can find a comfortable corner at kidding time, still feel like they are part of the herd, but have a corner to kid in so the kids stay closer to the doe. this has worked great.  especially when several of the does have already kidded and there are babies running around everywhere.


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## helmstead (Jan 19, 2011)

We didn't have enough barn in GA...so...my condition with my DH to move me to Indiana was, simply, build me my dream barn. 

And he did.

And now, it's not big enough 

Our barn's footprint is 46x36.  Then we build sheds around it (not totally done yet, the south side hasn't been shedded) making the total size 56x56.  Our goat pens encircle the barn.  Each pen except our buck pen has access to get inside the barn through a small door, and each pen has a 10' shed overhang.  These are closed on the north side, providing more shelter from wind/rain/snow.

Inside the barn are 12x12 stalls for the pens to gather in.  Unfortunately not EVERY pen has a stall, but the most populated ones doe have barn access.

My kidding stalls are SMALL.  In GA, they were 5x10, and I found the babies sometimes would be born away from the heat lamp during the winter, causing kidcicles.  So here, I built the kidding stalls with 4.5' solid walls and they're only 5x5.  I also made it so in frigid temperatures we can install 'lids' over top of the kidding stalls to hold the heat from the lamps in better.  Then I have a 5x12 bottle baby stall, which is 1/3 covered, and the heat lamps are under the covered area.

Some pics of the barn while it was under construction last January:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30795533&l=2337b6d9bb&id=1528396349
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30823188&l=1ac88ce9e5&id=1528396349
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30823189&l=999664172b&id=1528396349


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## julieq (Jan 19, 2011)

Our vintage dairy barn is about 30 x 60, with an original enclosed milk room in one corner that's about 12 x 12.  We also use cattle panels, lined with red top fence wire on the inside, so our stalls are pretty good sized.  The panels are nice as we can change configurations as needed.   If I were building, I think I could go with about the same size, but I'd certainly like a larger milk/feed room.  I'm always running out of space and reorganizing in there.  I think the key is to overbuild size wise if at all possible.


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## freemotion (Jan 19, 2011)

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

> our kidding stalls are also temporary, we use plywood panels with brackets at the ends to put them together with rebarb rods. This works great. We had or kidding pens 8 by 4 but we decided this was taking up to much room and just didn't need to be that big, so we are going to recut some of the boards so the stalls will measure 4 by 6. We like that the boards are solid, the does seem to enjoy being alone with the kids.


Any chance of posting pics of this, with detail photos on how it is put together?  Maybe in its own thread for easy locating later?


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## 20kidsonhill (Jan 19, 2011)

I can try, I haven't posted pics on here yet, and was wanting to figure it out, since my first 11 does are due feb 3.   I may need to go take some pictures, if I can't find any in my photo arcive.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jan 19, 2011)

trying to figure out this image thing. this is an image of the bracket we attach to the board.


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## 20kidsonhill (Jan 19, 2011)

wow, i am impressed with myself, i figured it out.  

here are a few more images, should i be uploading these pics in the smaller setting?

We don't have our kidding pens set up yet, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out you can put these panels together in triangles or rectangles. we use large eye hooks on the feeder to attach them to fronts of feeders. the important step is to off set your brackets so when you are putting panels together the brackets are not side by side, but rather on top of each other. [


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 19, 2011)

Wow, those images really helped me. I think I'll go with 5 x 5 like helmstead said and use the brackets like 20kidsonhill pictured. That way I can take them down later. I plan on running the roof line out for a covered porch, a must in GA heat.

ETA:
I really like this one

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7sUU9MYwUjo/Smm-h-sYtUI/AAAAAAAAFaM/Q8zPNKBJsHo/s1600-h/100_3272.JPG

from this website
http://cedarfieldfarm.blogspot.com/

But won't the goats eat the wood? I love the little dog eared fence panel. Cute.


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## DonnaBelle (Jan 19, 2011)

Where we live, in rural SW Oklahoma, there are too many predators to do anything but lock all the livestock, with the exception of the horses, in tight at night.

We have a barn that can be locked up tight at night, it has windows but we have tightly woven wire over them.

DonnaBelle


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## 20kidsonhill (Jan 19, 2011)

right now we have the boards attached to the feeders to keep the head does from beating up on the more timid does. REallly helps with feeding grain. Of course they can still come around the board, but it seems to slow them down some and helps the more timid does feel braver about coming up to the feeder to get grain. 

We can also in a pinch just attach an end board and have an emergency pen, incase we need to seperate a couple younger does that just can't handle being in with the big does.

as far as eating the wood, we haven't had a problem with this, the feeders and boards are near 10 years old. But our goats are very rarely closed up in the barn. 

When kidding is done we attach some of the boards together to make a creep feeding pen for the kids. At one end we attach a special  gate that my DH made. It works great. With rebarb rods that can be pulled out to ajust the size of the slot for the kids. When I get a chance I will post a pic of it.


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## freemotion (Jan 19, 2011)

20kidsonhill said:
			
		

> wow, i am impressed with myself, i figured it out.
> 
> here are a few more images, should i be uploading these pics in the smaller setting?
> 
> ...


Great!  Thanks!  But what is on the other end?  How do you do the doors?  How do you attach the other end of the boards?  Sorry!  I'm not very imaginative today!


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## 20kidsonhill (Jan 19, 2011)

I tell you what, if you can hang in there until this weekend, I will post pics of a couple pens put together, since I don't have my pens actually put up yet. That is this weekends plans. 

  In these pics there is nothing on the end of the board, they are just coming out from the feeder as dividing walls.


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 26, 2011)

Okay current plans and ready to order metal

12 x 15






Open for suggestions. 

Thanks, Melissa


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## helmstead (Jan 26, 2011)

Sweet!

So you'll be able to feed from the feed rm/milking parlor area?  The more goats you get, you will find that amt of space for the feeder to be inadequate (boss hoss will shoo his/her lil minions away from the feeder all together).  So you might consider feeding through a cattle panel with the feed trough hung outside the fence.


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 26, 2011)

Well, hopefully I won't be "feeding" all of them from the feeder. I will feed grain on the stand, right? I will build a hay bale holder for inside the barn, may be two as I add to my herd.


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 26, 2011)

How about with a 6 x 13 goat area?







Of course the Kidding stall will only be for a few months and I maybe could work the milk stand some other way. Hay stacked along the wall would add insulation.


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Jan 26, 2011)

That's going to be great!  But I think Kate's talking about your hay feeder.  You'll have one doe that wants to claim the whole dang thing even though there's enough food and space for 5 goats.  Those on the bottom of the totem pole sometimes don't get enough.  If you want to feed them all from one hay manger it'll have to be pretty large, or you can have multiple mangers but that means more work filling them.

Going to be REALLY nice though!


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 26, 2011)

Oh BTY, this is a shed type design. 8 foot in the front (hay storage) and 6' at the back (covered porch). 

We just got through building a 8 x 8 storage shed with a pitch roof, I had no fun at ALL. My husband was very mad at me for days for making him cut a "template" to use to cut the other rafters the same.


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## Melissa'sDreamFarm (Jan 26, 2011)

Feeder was meant as a grain feeder. Opps, I will build two or three hay bale racks to hold bales of hay in the barn for them to eat from.


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## SDGsoap&dairy (Jan 26, 2011)

Uh- never mind then.  You'll want to ignore my previous comment. 

Except they do the same thing with grain, so your bossiest girl will also be your tubbiest girl if it's narrow enough for her to bogart.


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## helmstead (Jan 26, 2011)

Yeah I was referring to grain feeders.  Because, see, they won't ALWAYS be in milk and you won't ALWAYS feel like taking the time to feed them 1x1 in the stanchion.  I like design 2 better  

For instance, my goats all have to poke their lil heads through our field fence to eat their grain...laid out in 10' rows.  Harder to bogart LOL


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