New to Goats, New to farms... New to it all! From NC

[Southern by choice]

You will want to either put mats down or bedding of some sort. Goat urine stinks and they pee ALOT! The vinyl will be slippery as well as difficult to keep clean.

Sometimes I roll my eyes at goats... we rake and clean the inside almost daily and as soon as all the berries are raked up and all clean the goats file in a and pee inside! GRRRR.

 

[Southern by choice]

Ummmm I need some gates built- yours look nice... wanna come do my gates?

 

[Ericka]

Bedding? The chickens have pine bedding... think hampster. Can I use that?

 

[Ferguson K]

Pine shavings are great, be careful using wood pellets. They'll try to eat it.

 

[Southern by choice]

Yeah, I like the fine sawdust shavings best... easy to clean and shovel.

 

[babsbag]

I was just at a dairy that is using wood floors in the barn. They built the floor in sections, like pallets; out of 2x4's with small spaces so the berries and urine goes down to the ground below. They really like it, easy to clean; goats stay dry. They just pick up the sections and clean out below and no bedding under the wood floor so easy to clean. There is stall bedding for horses that absorbs urine that you could put under the wood floor, might save some daily cleaning.

 

[Ericka]

Boy you guys sure are helpful and these goats that i don't even own yet sure are gonna be lucky to have you

 

[Southern by choice]

I was just at a dairy that is using wood floors in the barn. They built the floor in sections, like pallets; out of 2x4's with small spaces so the berries and urine goes down to the ground below. They really like it, easy to clean; goats stay dry. They just pick up the sections and clean out below and no bedding under the wood floor so easy to clean. There is stall bedding for horses that absorbs urine that you could put under the wood floor, might save some daily cleaning.

How did they do it @babsbag ? I have a "deck" piece I built that had spaces- the theory was the berries would fall down between the slats- it was a nightmare. Some berries did go through but the larger berries got stuck in between the slats and I was having the take the shovel and shove them through.

What was the bedding underneath?

Wish you'd a grabbed a picture!

 

[babsbag]

We just want to help you start off right, there is nothing more heartbreaking than getting your goats only to have them be sick or have some other problems. Maybe you know this, but I don't remember anyone mentioning CAE, CL or Johne's...all diseases that can be tested for that you don't want to bring home with your first goats. Not many people test for Johne's but CAE and CL should be tested for and you want to look for goats from clean dams.

 

[Ericka]

I am looking another farm, as i am super not interested in bottle feeding.... just to be sure I can disbud them :/ so far the farms seem to all mention testing. I just didn't realize how expensive they would be. the original farmer did test and they were not registered, so perhaps that was the price difference?