# Goat shelter



## TXMissy (Aug 17, 2021)

I am curious what kind of shelters you have for your goats. I want my goats to be able to get out of the rain. I went into the shelter and more of it was wet than not. I feel HORRIBLE! This is what I have for them. Don't judge me, I am learning. It was an old chicken pen 8×8 or 10x10, that I planned on using for the goats to take shelter in. It was free and I figured I could make it work. And I still might...I need help figuring out how to keep the rain out while still giving them air. My husband thinks I am going over board. He says..what would they do in the wild? I dunno..find a cave? I am more concerned for the winter.  I don't want them wet and cold. Anyway, I would love to hear any ideas you have. Should I tarp it all except the entry? Maybe that would be best.
Thanks ya'll


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## animalmom (Aug 18, 2021)

Between you, me and the proverbial fencepost, those tarps are not going to last long in the Texas sun.  Now, your chicken run is a good place to start.  It looks solid and too tall for the boys to jump on the top, so that is a good choice.  One of the members, how is in TN puts some type of paint on his tarps, but I think he starts out with canvas tarps. @Mike CHS is the fellow.  He does sheep.

Yeah, the boys are not going to like getting wet and in Texas you do have the problem of keeping the air flow going and keeping the weather out.  We enclose 3 sides, and the roof and position the shelter so the back faces most of our incoming weather (did that make sense?).  We started out building cabanas out of plywood with a metal roof.  Ours are short and the goats get on top during nice weather.  I don't think I'm suggesting using plywood to cover the top and sides as in today's prices that would be rather expensive.

As an alternative you might want to look into plastic roofing... This is what we use on some goat tunnels (gunnels) we built. 








						Suntuf 26 in. x 8 ft. Solar Gray Polycarbonate Corrugated Roof Panel 101929 - The Home Depot
					

The Suntuf 8 ft. Polycarbonate Corrugated Roof Panel is designed for comfort. This durable panel is solar gray, an attractive color that permits light to shine through. The panel helps to protect open



					www.homedepot.com
				



 It holds up well to the weather, can be translucent, reflects UV, and is not nearly as heavy as plywood to work with.  You would want to be creative in attaching it to your wire frame.  The goats rub on it and the corners tend to eventually crack off, but that doesn't seem to impair overall function.  We also used these panels to put a roof on the dog kennel.

Just some thoughts.  You don't need to do all sides, just three sides and the top.


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## animalmom (Aug 18, 2021)

Gates open into the pen!  They are going to stand on the gate regardless of the direction it swings, if the gate opens into the pen and they stand on it they are keeping it shut.  If the gate swing the other way and they stand on it they could open the gate.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

animalmom said:


> Between you, me and the proverbial fencepost, those tarps are not going to last long in the Texas sun.  Now, your chicken run is a good place to start.  It looks solid and too tall for the boys to jump on the top, so that is a good choice.  One of the members, how is in TN puts some type of paint on his tarps, but I think he starts out with canvas tarps. @Mike CHS is the fellow.  He does sheep.
> 
> Yeah, the boys are not going to like getting wet and in Texas you do have the problem of keeping the air flow going and keeping the weather out.  We enclose 3 sides, and the roof and position the shelter so the back faces most of our incoming weather (did that make sense?).  We started out building cabanas out of plywood with a metal roof.  Ours are short and the goats get on top during nice weather.  I don't think I'm suggesting using plywood to cover the top and sides as in today's prices that would be rather expensive.
> 
> ...


Okay,  thank you. The gate is actually on the fence, not the pen. We fenced off an area for them where the pen is so they can have their own space. The pen itself has no gate. We will make sure the gate swings in, instead of out when we open it.


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## Alaskan (Aug 18, 2021)

If you could just put a big roof over that, and 2 walls for winter to block winds and such.

For my goats they had a barn.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

Yeah... I thought this would work well but the issue is rain. I am wondering how to strap wood to it without water getting in. I am not sure how to cover it with putting holes in the wood and strapping it to the wire.  The sides are easier to figure out than the roof. Texas gets lots of rain in the fall and winter.. well more so than any other time. So... if I can figure out how to cover the roof ... i might just start over and build one out of plywood and 2x4s


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## BarnOwl (Aug 18, 2021)

We have an old barn but we decided we wanted to keep the goats closer to the house, at least until they are older. We were using tarps and dog houses for a couple of weeks, but found this "goat shelter" on FB marketplace for a reasonable price. If we hadn't found this shelter, we were going to get a porta-hut or calf-hut type structure from one of the farmer co-ops in the area.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> We have an old barn but we decided we wanted to keep the goats closer to the house, at least until they are older. We were using tarps and dog houses for a couple of weeks, but found this "goat shelter" on FB marketplace for a reasonable price. If we hadn't found this shelter, we were going to get a porta-hut or calf-hut type structure from one of the farmer co-ops in the area.
> 
> View attachment 87384


That is nice! I think we are going to build something like this.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> We have an old barn but we decided we wanted to keep the goats closer to the house, at least until they are older. We were using tarps and dog houses for a couple of weeks, but found this "goat shelter" on FB marketplace for a reasonable price. If we hadn't found this shelter, we were going to get a porta-hut or calf-hut type structure from one of the farmer co-ops in the area.
> 
> View attachment 87384


This is awesome.  Do you know the dimensions ? My husband and I decide to make a shelter for them.


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## BarnOwl (Aug 18, 2021)

It's working out well so far. The metal gets hot in the sun so would probably be better positioned in the shade. They only need to go in at night and when it's raining so I'm not too worried about it at the moment. It's 6 ft wide and 8 ft long. I am lacking carpentry skills, but it looks like it'd be fairly simple to build. If I remember correctly, the guy who built it said that Lowes even cut the metal for him.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> It's working out well so far. The metal gets hot in the sun so would probably be better positioned in the shade. They only need to go in at night and when it's raining so I'm not too worried about it at the moment. It's 6 ft wide and 8 ft long. I am lacking carpentry skills, but it looks like it'd be fairly simple to build. If I remember correctly, the guy who built it said that Lowes even cut the metal for him.


Yeah,  i ambit sure my husband will be thrilled about the tin. I don't know where you are but I am in TX and it gets hot here...fast. August is the worst though this year it has been mild. We could easily use plywood instead of tin along the sides.  It looks really nice. I am more concerned with the wet cold winters.


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## BarnOwl (Aug 18, 2021)

TXMissy said:


> Yeah,  i ambit sure my husband will be thrilled about the tin. I don't know where you are but I am in TX and it gets hot here...fast. August is the worst though this year it has been mild. We could easily use plywood instead of tin along the sides.  It looks really nice. I am more concerned with the wet cold winters.


We are in Tennessee. Summers are hot and HUMID, though maybe not as hot as Texas. We get a lot of rain, though  winters are relatively mild--can be cold, but hardly any snow. I never even unpacked my winter clothes from when I lived further up north.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> We are in Tennessee. Summers are hot and HUMID, though maybe not as hot as Texas. We get a lot of rain, though  winters are relatively mild--can be cold, but hardly any snow. I never even unpacked my winter clothes from when I lived further up north.


Yeah Tennessee gets colder than TX. I hate being cold 🥶 but I bet the snow is beautiful. We have hot and humid weather too. Normally over 100 this time of year.  I saw one of your posts about your new dwarf babies! Are you going to breed goats? Are they pets, meat or milk?  Mine are just pets... I call them my therapy goats because they make me laugh and are so fun. They are Nigerian Dwarf/ Myotonic goats. No fainting has happened yet. A part of me wants to scare them and see if they faint but the other part of me would feel bad. 😆


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

My dramatic girl, Buttercup. She is so great.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> We are in Tennessee. Summers are hot and HUMID, though maybe not as hot as Texas. We get a lot of rain, though  winters are relatively mild--can be cold, but hardly any snow. I never even unpacked my winter clothes from when I lived further up north.


I noticed your pic was of pigs. Do you have pigs? I love them.  Pigs are so super smart and highly under-rated.


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## BarnOwl (Aug 18, 2021)

TXMissy said:


> Yeah Tennessee gets colder than TX. I hate being cold 🥶 but I bet the snow is beautiful. We have hot and humid weather too. Normally over 100 this time of year.  I saw one of your posts about your new dwarf babies! Are you going to breed goats? Are they pets, meat or milk?  Mine are just pets... I call them my therapy goats because they make me laugh and are so fun. They are Nigerian Dwarf/ Myotonic goats. No fainting has happened yet. A part of me wants to scare them and see if they faint but the other part of me would feel bad. 😆


Yeah, we have 3 Nigerian Dwarf doelings. The plan is to milk them eventually, and I'll have to breed them to get milk, of course. I am not sure if I will have the fortitude to milk daily (or twice daily) in addition to all my other work, family, and animal chores...so if the dairy aspect doesn't work out, they will just be pets. They are a lot of fun! 

Buttercup is adorable! She looks like she has so much personality. I really like myotonic goats. They were near the top of my list until I decided I wanted to go with a dairy breed.


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## BarnOwl (Aug 18, 2021)

TXMissy said:


> I noticed your pic was of pigs. Do you have pigs? I love them.  Pigs are so super smart and highly under-rated.


Right now we have two American Guinea Hogs, a smallish heritage pig breed. We like them. They are known for being hardy and gentle. We have a family memeber who breeds them and we bought a few feeder pigs last year.


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## TXMissy (Aug 18, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> Right now we have two American Guinea Hogs, a smallish heritage pig breed. We like them. They are known for being hardy and gentle. We have a family memeber who breeds them and we bought a few feeder pigs last year.


I have never had "commercial" hogs. I volunteered at a place that took in some FFA hogs that the kids could not bare to have slaughtered. They were awesome. I have owned pot belly pigs as pets. They are my favorite so far. I cannot have them for some reason in my current location.  I was not happy when I found that out. That is how I ended up with goats.


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## BarnOwl (Aug 19, 2021)

TXMissy said:


> I have never had "commercial" hogs. I volunteered at a place that took in some FFA hogs that the kids could not bare to have slaughtered. They were awesome. I have owned pot belly pigs as pets. They are my favorite so far. I cannot have them for some reason in my current location.  I was not happy when I found that out. That is how I ended up with goats.


Oh my goodness! She (he?) is too cute!

Ours aren't really pets, but Lovely (the bigger one lying down in this photo) will let me pet her tummy. They look awful in this photo...they had been bathing in their wallow to get out of the heat. When it rains or if I hose them off, they look much better.

The old barn is blocked off into different areas inside and was originally where we were going to put the goats, and we installed about an acre of goat fencing bordering the pig's pen. But the goats looked so tiny when we brought them home that we are just keeping them in our fenced backyard for now. It's nice having them a little closer.


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## TXMissy (Aug 19, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> Oh my goodness! She (he?) is too cute!
> 
> Ours aren't really pets, but Lovely (the bigger one lying down in this photo) will let me pet her tummy. They look awful in this photo...they had been bathing in their wallow to get out of the heat. When it rains or if I hose them off, they look much better.
> 
> ...


They are so cute! People think pigs are dirty..I am not sure where that came from. They roll in the mud to stay cool and to keep from burning since they don't sweat(I am sure you know that). They will poop in a separate area from where they eat and sleep. I think they are the cleanest of any animal I have worked with so far. My girl loved to play in piles of leaves lol. It was so funny.  She would get the zoomies and run around and then just fall over. She would lay in my lap. She was great. Your pigs are beautiful. 😍


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## animalmom (Aug 19, 2021)

You could frame out the shelter in wood, like in @BarnOwl's picture and use the panels I suggested instead of the tin panels.  The suggested panels will work well on the roof and sides and are lighter/easier to handle and cut.

As to how tall before they can't jump on the roof... darn good question.  We have some shelters that are 4 feet tall and they jump on that.  We locate the shelters so they are not close to fencing as we worried about the wee darlings getting on the roof and jumping out.  We have one doe that liked to jump on the roof and pop over the fence into the geese yard.  She soon discovered that it wasn't all that much fun with the geese.  We moved the shelter 4 feet from the fence and she didn't do that any more.

With the slope in the roof, to allow runoff, your goats may decide it isn't much fun to get up on a roof they are going to slide off of... really disrupts sleeping.


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## TXMissy (Aug 19, 2021)

animalmom said:


> You could frame out the shelter in wood, like in @BarnOwl's picture and use the panels I suggested instead of the tin panels.  The suggested panels will work well on the roof and sides and are lighter/easier to handle and cut.
> 
> As to how tall before they can't jump on the roof... darn good question.  We have some shelters that are 4 feet tall and they jump on that.  We locate the shelters so they are not close to fencing as we worried about the wee darlings getting on the roof and jumping out.  We have one doe that liked to jump on the roof and pop over the fence into the geese yard.  She soon discovered that it wasn't all that much fun with the geese.  We moved the shelter 4 feet from the fence and she didn't do that any more.
> 
> With the slope in the roof, to allow runoff, your goats may decide it isn't much fun to get up on a roof they are going to slide off of... really disrupts sleeping.


Thank you! Apparently Texas has this thing called Agrilife Extension from Texas A&M. I had no idea this existed! It's a free to use service and someone comes and teaches you whatever you need... for instance.  I called to see if they had someone to help me trim the goats hooves the first time, as I do not have my stand yet. Not only did he show me how and do it.. he gave me pointers on the fencing, and how big to make their shelter and where to put it. He said if my 2 goats could jump on the roof..they would be super goats. Lol. Anyway,  I had no idea the counties in TX provided this service.  I am so excited.  There is a wide variety of things they help with. He even told me about my grass, trees, plants...how to trim them. They are such a great source of information for farmers, ranchers,gardeners. I was so excited to find out all this information and to know this is a free service.  Best thing I have found so far as far services. And of course all your knowledge, Amazing!  I am going to be so smart! 😃


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## BarnOwl (Aug 25, 2021)

how are your goats and your shelter coming along? I was looking through some of my old files and found this link to a guy who makes hoop-like shelters for his goats out of PVC.  They aren't too pretty but if they're out in a field where no one sees them, who cares, and PVC would be easier to haul around than the metal and wood shelter I currently have. I found them when I was looking up information to build hoop coops, but I don't have a truck/trailer yet and so bringing home cattle panels is complicated.


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## TXMissy (Aug 25, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> how are your goats and your shelter coming along? I was looking through some of my old files and found this link to a guy who makes hoop-like shelters for his goats out of PVC.  They aren't too pretty but if they're out in a field where no one sees them, who cares, and PVC would be easier to haul around than the metal and wood shelter I currently have. I found them when I was looking up information to build hoop coops, but I don't have a truck/trailer yet and so bringing home cattle panels is complicated.


We are still in progress but here are some pics. We used the pic of yours to create ours. So thank you! We need to finish the roof.  We are closing the sides a little more and closing off half the front and putting shingles on the roof. I also need to seal the wood. Once we are done I will share more pics.  Hopefully we will get it done this weekend!


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## Ridgetop (Aug 25, 2021)

Each county has an Agrilife extension office.  Yu can also get bags to take soil samples of your land and send in to find our what kind of soil you have and what nutrients it needs.  Also sign up for notifications of classes and seminars.  A lot of them are free, some of them charge, but they are good sources of information and learning about ag in your area.


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## BarnOwl (Aug 25, 2021)

Wow, it looks great already. They are going to love it! Be sure to post pics when you’re done!


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## TXMissy (Aug 25, 2021)

Ridgetop said:


> Each county has an Agrilife extension office.  Yu can also get bags to take soil samples of your land and send in to find our what kind of soil you have and what nutrients it needs.  Also sign up for notifications of classes and seminars.  A lot of them are free, some of them charge, but they are good sources of information and learning about ag in your area.


I had no idea this was a thing. It's so great. I asked them to add me to the newsletter. I am really pumped about it.


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## TXMissy (Aug 25, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> Wow, it looks great already. They are going to love it! Be sure to post pics when you’re done!


Thank you I will!


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## Ridgetop (Aug 25, 2021)

The seminars are great.  We used to go to them here in our state until they stopped having them locally - no ag.  I am on the Wood county list and will register on the Hopkins County list as well.  If you have children, ask about 4-H clubs in your area too.


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## TXMissy (Aug 25, 2021)

Ridgetop said:


> The seminars are great.  We used to go to them here in our state until they stopped having them locally - no ag.  I am on the Wood county list and will register on the Hopkins County list as well.  If you have children, ask about 4-H clubs in your area too.


Yeah, they guy that helped me trim the goats hooves told me about the 4H. My kids are grown but I have grandchildren.  Hopefully my daughter will get them in it. My grandson, who is just old enough to join loved my chickens. I would love to see him get involved.


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## TXMissy (Sep 1, 2021)

Okay! Here is the completed shed! It isn't purdy but does the job. We put shingles on the roof and weather treated the plywood.


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## BarnOwl (Sep 1, 2021)

It looks good to me!


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## TXMissy (Sep 1, 2021)

BarnOwl said:


> It looks good to me!


Thank you!


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## animalmom (Sep 1, 2021)

Two thumbs up from me!  Well done!


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## TXMissy (Sep 1, 2021)

Thank you! Not too bad for just looking at a picture.


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## Jrios (Sep 3, 2021)

We use


animalmom said:


> Between you, me and the proverbial fencepost, those tarps are not going to last long in the Texas sun.  Now, your chicken run is a good place to start.  It looks solid and too tall for the boys to jump on the top, so that is a good choice.  One of the members, how is in TN puts some type of paint on his tarps, but I think he starts out with canvas tarps. @Mike CHS is the fellow.  He does sheep.
> 
> Yeah, the boys are not going to like getting wet and in Texas you do have the problem of keeping the air flow going and keeping the weather out.  We enclose 3 sides, and the roof and position the shelter so the back faces most of our incoming weather (did that make sense?).  We started out building cabanas out of plywood with a metal roof.  Ours are short and the goats get on top during nice weather.  I don't think I'm suggesting using plywood to cover the top and sides as in today's prices that would be rather expensive.
> 
> ...


We used metal panels, 3 sided, and i get out there and caulk any holes.  I live near Denton and my goats survived the frigid February we had- minus 6 at our house. Ours is too tall for them to jump on, since they would then escape. We have several giant wooden spools and an old holey rubbermaid horse trough for them to climb on. They sleep outside  unless it's raining or very cold.  My sheep insist on being in the shed at night tho.


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