Photos of the inside of your goat barns please!

[lupinfarm]

Ha-ha, I hear ya. The building the goats will take over is actually not even finished being renovated. It's my current chicken coop, but it's not really ideal for chickens and would be suit goats (it'd be easier to clean if goats inhabited it). It has a cement floor that isn't in the best condition, actually the foundation isn't in the greatest condition but it's a 90 year old building! I'll give it a break I'll be putting rubber stall mats down to cover the whole floor, I'll enlarge the chicken pop door to accomodate the goats (it will have a 30x30 drylot on the back of it). I have what I like to call a 'bunker' at the front of the building by the front door, I can't take it out and I can't fill it so I'm going to cover it... I'll be building a small deck over it for the goats to use/sleep on (if they stand up they will be able to see out the front window).

On one side of the pop door will be a 4x6 (or thereabouts) kidding stall, and I'll have some panels made that I can bring in if I need a second kidding stall.

We can't build anything bigger than 10x10 here with a permit, so I'm putting my chicken coop on a trailer/wheels so I can get around this rule I need a much bigger building for my goats once I start breeding them so the move only made sense.

We are on a waiting list for a Pygmy buck and Nigerian Dwarf wether (to be wethered by the breeder) this spring, so we're getting ready!

 

[FarmerChick]

nice pics!!

 

[ducks4you]

PattiXmas, your setup is adorable! My barn has horse stalls--you know, 12 x 8, 12 x 12 and 12 x 16. Your Goat setup looks like miniatures, compared to mine. That hay on top of the stalls is efficient, too, and I'm sure it insulates.

 

[PattiXmas]

We made a few modifications today in the barn. Most of our friends (or my sister) have to use flash lights in their barns, especially in the stall area so we installed 2 florescent lights in their stalls. It really makes the stalls nice and bright. Next, we are installing 2 cabinets for the girls' medicines (if needed) and other miscellaneous supplies.

Dark and scary -

Nice and bright -

We had our vet out today to look at Snowy's eye again. She really loved the improvements.

 

[lupinfarm]

Oh my Patti, I am envious. Our "barn" was once hooked up to the pole line with it's own breaker panel, but sometime in the 80s the previous owners disconnected it. We are having it reconnected next year when our garage-cum-kennel/workshop gets hooked up.

I have been looking at your lovely goat barn all day and thinking, why bother building a rolling chicken coop? My mum and I came up with a plan that may be cheaper, we can get away with a 10x12 chicken coop if its down the end of the garden out of sight behind the one treeline, and it will be a gambrel roof like yours! ours will be up on stilts and will have a covered/fenced chicken deck because apparently I have the only chickens who can effectively dig 2 feet down and get under their fence LOLOL with a leanto duck house off the side for my Buff orp ducks.

 

[no nonsense]

Very nice set up in those pictures, but two suggestions for anyone trying to copy it:

1. The gates and side walls of the stalls are very low. I'm surprised that the does haven't figured out how to jump out yet, but they will.

2. They would be happier if they were together, rather than seperate. Each would have much more room if you removed the two side walls, and walled off the area between the two gates, making one big stall. You could even fit three goats in the one big stall, and they'd all have more room to move around than the single goats currently do in their small stalls. Keep both gates in place, and retain one of the side walls to put up as a small temporary stall, should you ever need to seperate anyone. Fill in the area above the current walkway between both stalls, and you've also added 1/3 more hay storage.

 

[lupinfarm]

They seem happy enough, at least the can see each other.

 

[lupinfarm]

Alright guys, lets put pictures to words...

This is the building I have to work with, as you can clearly see it's not finished LOL it's about 90 years old and I originally renovated it for the chickens but really it's not suited to chickens.

It fronts right onto my driveway next to the house. I'll be typaring the whole thing this winter, and then cover the smartside which I know won't hold up to the goats, with 1x8" pine board and batten siding. I'm changing out the windows, ... Should I try and get real house windows or just put in plexi on openable frames and give it a shutter like my soon-to-be-buck-house has?

The back of it...... I have an enormous area to use as my drylot, but it'll probably still be only 30x30ft. Would there be any implications to using sand as a base (.. maybe I shouldn't... sand colic), how about wood chips/mulch?

From the back before it was renovated, the thing was infested with bees and wasps and err... a family of squirrels....living in their nice squirrly condo above a family of snakes. Yeah..

I bet you must all think me mad, a bunker? whaaaa? This is the bunker I speak of! It's probably 4 feet deep and about 8x3ft wide/long

As you can tell it has some rather unsavory junk in it but it does have a lid and I was thinking about building a deck over it for the goats to play/sleep on.

The inside BEFORE it was renovated last summer..

The inside now (except now it has nestboxes on one side and a roost a the end. The partition will be removed, the nest boxes taken out, the pop door enlarged to accomodate the goats, etc etc. I'm putting down rubber matts as well on the floor for easier clean up.

On the right side at the very back will be my permanent stall, although I might still make that one temporary in panels too...

One more photo of the side... This is from the house before it was inhabited by chickens..

Whatcha guys think? My chickens will hopefully move to a 10x12 gambrel roof chicken house with attached lean-to duck house and decks instead of runs since they DIG.

 

[PattiXmas]

Very nice set up in those pictures, but two suggestions for anyone trying to copy it:

1. The gates and side walls of the stalls are very low. I'm surprised that the does haven't figured out how to jump out yet, but they will.

2. They would be happier if they were together, rather than seperate. Each would have much more room if you removed the two side walls, and walled off the area between the two gates, making one big stall. You could even fit three goats in the one big stall, and they'd all have more room to move around than the single goats currently do in their small stalls. Keep both gates in place, and retain one of the side walls to put up as a small temporary stall, should you ever need to seperate anyone. Fill in the area above the current walkway between both stalls, and you've also added 1/3 more hay storage.

We had to separate them because Snowy eats ALL the food and Daisy gets left with nothing. Snowy also knocks the buckets off and spills food. Since both girls were bred in October, we want to make sure Daisy gets equal opportunity food time

We've been lucky they haven't been jumping over, they will come and stand up to get attention, but we used these panels all summer and never had a jumper (even when we had the boers).

 

[no nonsense]

By "food", I assume you mean grain? Try keyhole feeders, one for each. Once they freshen, it shouldn't be a problem, as they should each get their grain while on the milk stand. For that matter, no reason why you couldn't start feeding them one at a time now on the stand. You'll be doing it soon enough anyway. If by food you mean hay, it just means that your hay racks are not large enough.
I'm big on efficiency, space and time. It might not matter much for only two goats, but add up the extra time needed to service two seperate stalls every day, and you'll be left with hours each month. The same amount of time could be spent caring for more goats, spending it enjoying the ones you do have, taking care of other animals, or, with winter coming, getting back inside quicker.