Goat pen pics?
 

Would anyone mind posting some pics of your goat pens? Along with details about what kind of fencing you used, how high it is, etc.? I would appreciate it so much!!

I have my goat books, got them from the library today! :baby04:

I would love to! Just gotta wait overnight when all the snow melts!!

Here is my bucks pen...
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...er22006008.jpg

Hayrack in bucks pen...
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...er22006011.jpg

Mineral feeder in bucks pen...
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...er22006010.jpg

Hayrack in a kidding pen...
http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h2...22006004-1.jpg

I was just pondering a thread like this earlier today!

[IMG]http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...riplets085.jpg[/IMG] [IMG][IMG]
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...asbabys020.jpg

These are a couple pictures of the inside of our little goat house, we have a divider for the middle if need be to separate and this works out wonderfully in colder months for kidding goats as you an see from the above pictures.It is about an 8 x 8 sized building.
We just used a cattle panel wire put up with steeples as hay feeders in it.

But for just general grazing etc.. we have them out in the pasture field /wooded growed up, hilly side of the farm area held in with 4 strands of electric fence wire and have never had one get out on us as of yet.
Well with the exception of one that we bottle fed and was totally spoiled, it cried and cried and would come through the electric fence to the house.
Below is one of the reasons that little goat was so spoiled, she adored him.
[IMG]http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...asbabys094.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/f...lets099001.jpg[/IMG]

I use a 12 X 14 horse stall in the barn. I don't have fencing outside for goats, just the horses. I let my goat just wonder...she doesn't go far at all. She stays by the house or on the front porch...wanders into the hay field just a little way that's it. Hangs out by the barn. When she has her babies we might have to change things but right now she stays real close to the barn and house. I have 2 electrical spools in her pen 1 large and 1 small. Also a wooden box that she uses as a cave or just to stand on. She also uses a kennel that's up on legs to sleep in sometimes. I have a stall mat with her feeding bowl and mineral and baking soda feeder. I also have the ho-made garbage can hay feeder that I got off this forum. Here are a couple pics
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/4...6100MZM2bloyY8
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/4...6100MZM2bloyY8
http://im1.shutterfly.com/procserv/4...6100MZM2bloyY8

Thanks so much for posting the pics! Those are some awesome goat pens..I can't wait to get ours built!

greeneyedgirl..when I saw all those rocks in the background of your pic, I knew you had to be in VA! lol I lived in Va when I was a kid (um..not a goat kid lol)

John, do you have any sizes for your buck barn??? I would love to know how much it cost and is that one sheet of tin or two???

My dad and younger brothers (who are 20 and 17) fixed up my goat barn during Christmas break! They added a whole new addition on for $50 and did an excellent job and I (and my goatie-girls) are SO thankful!

I put pics on my blog....

www.trulythoughtprovoking.blogspot.com

Jessica :)

Ok, John. I can not believe you have such a little gate for your bucks. I have one of the Prefers gates with the wire in it and my bucks ram it so hard that they broke the gate.
I also have that mineral feeder, (12 of them all over the place), and I have a wire feeder some what like yours. The problem is all the hay ends up on the floor because it goes right thorough the squares.
I will have to try to get some pictures. It is always so dark when I get home.

Jessica, I really like the shutters on your barn! Are they functional?

"Minelson: Jessica, I really like the shutters on your barn! Are they functional?"

Yes they are. I open them on sunny nice days and keep them shut when it rains or is too cold (which down here in southern VA seems like it's never cold ;)

As seen from our house
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...28sep07070.jpg



Then stepping inside the goat pen:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...28sep07074.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...28sep07075.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...28sep07078.jpg



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...28sep07079.jpg

After that I covered the top, back and sides with plastic sheeting. Right now it has two foot of snow on top of it.

Entirely built of wooden loading pallets. [free]

ET1, gee, what happened to all the bark on your trees? ;) LOL Same thing happened here to all the posts we used for the fence. Stripped clean. The few horned goats took great pleasure in rubbing their horns on the posts. I thought it would be nice to grow some trees in the goat pen but I don't suppose they would last long.............unless someone here has some ideas of something "goat proof" that I can wrap the lower part of the trees in.

They eat the bark and all lower branches.

We once had a herd of goats, that we put into a grove of willow trees. It had once been a artesian spring but a willow soon became a thick cluster of willows and the water was gone. We strung a hot wire around the perimeter of the grove and put the goats in. It took them over a year, but they eventually striped, killed and ate every tree leaving a wet puddle.

That picture of the 2 goats on the rock is great! I would frame that one!!! :)

That rock is just close enough to the fence that it gave those girls the idea to jump over the fence right there.

For fencing, I would absolutely swear by welded wire cattle panels. Hog panels work well for kids. However, you may need to put a hot wire along the top edge of the panel for bucks in the fall....my boys will get over the 56" fence somehow. The barn itself is cement block and older than the hills. For grain feeding the does put their heads through the cattle panel and eat out of elevated hog troughs. Hay goes in between two cattle panels nailed on either side of 2x4's. Works great...no feet or manure in the feed and minimal waste.

ET, can you please tell me how you attached the pallets together? I have a great source to get all I want but, I look at them and can't figure out how to keep them together. I have used some to make climbing ramps for them and they love it but, I would really like to be able to make some little houses out of them too.

Sisal twine.

Stand two wooden pallets next to each other in the shape of an 'L', and lash them together with twine. The third pallet makes a 'C'. Then a series of 'L's. I think I did eight, but I could have done more.

Then a pallet on top and lashed them with twine to each of the three supporting pallets.

Then I cut down a bunch of small trees using pruning shears. I pushed the small trees, through the openings internal of the roof pallets. I started on one end and pushed them through the roof pallets, all of the way to the opposite end. My though was that I was locking each roof pallet into it's neighboring roof pallets on either side.

Before it got cold I did see kids running and playing up on their roof, and I have walked on it. So it is very solid.

I used twine, as I know that I may wish to take it apart and/or move it in the future. With twine I can cut it all apart and just drop the twine wherever it falls. I could have used bailing wire, but I do not want wire left out there.

I chose to use wooden pallets as they are free. Welded wire cattle panels and hog panels are very expensive.

http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...008/fence3.jpghttp://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...08/buckpen.jpg
http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...008/fence1.jpghttp://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j2...008/fence2.jpg
We have just finished 5 strand high tensile electric fence. The first pic is where the tensioners are and the gate. The second pic is the buck pen. We used goat panels and they work great.The only problem we have is that Mo Mo (shown in the pic) has a wedge shaped head and uses it on the gate to push it open.The other 2 pics show some of the fence .We have a wire 6" off of the ground and another right above.To keep out predators.It works well on all of my dogs Except the JRT she hops right through without touching (YET).

Finally got around to loading a few of my goat housing. We call it the "goat chalet".

This little cabin used to be down at the edge of our pond, I believe the previous owners used it to go into and put their ice skates on, etc. You could also sit out the side door and fish in the pond from it. :D From what I understand, they bought it from a riverside chalet/motel business and had it brought to the farm. I had someone use their tractor to drag it up the hill and put it beside the barn.

As you can see, it's in bad need of a paintjob, and needs some updating. No one has bothered with the windows, which I blocked off with wood in places where they might. The windows can be opened for cleaning time (one of which I broke, can you see the missing panel in pic #2?) and in good weather to add more ventilation.The chickens love that "picture window" in the back and perch there for a good portion of the winter mornings. They've never been stupid enough to mistake it for a quick exit door or try to fly into it from the outside. Even the dorky guinea hens (who are what I believe the dumbest birds on the planet, LOL) learned right away that the glass is solid. :D BUT having said that, I will be screening it all over in the summer.

This is the same chalet where I used to house just the chickens. Maybe you'll recall that one day when my chickens all went missing and I thought they'd "flown the coop"? When in fact, they were all in the top part of the chalet, perched silently on the rafters above my head! :D

So, coming back to the painting topic.....what colour do you think I should paint it? White? Or maybe red? I was eventually going to paint the barn red with white windows, but not sure how that chalet would look being red? Maybe too tacky. Or maybe you could suggest another colour?

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...k/IMG_0155.jpg


http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...k/IMG_0156.jpg

how do you keep the goats from tearing up the pallets our goats seem to tear up every thing if its not made out of pipe and wire they tear it down

Last winter we had a few wooden pallet pens for goats shaped like:

|_|

And we found that they would push them around a bit.



This fall I made a new and larger one. Where the first two pallets join is located at a tree. The tree forms the corner piece between two pallets. And again three pens further down is a second tree, and a third tree is on down at about the eighth pen.

Our current goat pen is shaped like this:

|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|

All with pallets on top.

This winter our goats have not moved their pens at all. They have climbed up on top of them, I do not know if I should care though. They are having fun.


I do not see where they have caused any destruction though.

:)

Here is one of my Doe pens.
I house 4 does here.
I like giving them lots of room. That way they have green grass instead of mud. :)

I dont have a pic of my buck pen but its basically the same as the doe pen.

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...Picture069.jpg

The little insulated box my hubby recently made for the boys. Rubber mat inside plus straw. Hinged top for easy cleaning. I put the cheapy little carpet over the door with a slit cut in it, to make do til I can get some more heavier rubber. The goats love it. Oh and I climbed in there to see how warm it was, very nice! LOL Stinky though.

I took out the wooden box we had in there before but left in their "doghouse" that they like playing in. Notice it's almost buried in the snow now? :rolleyes:
http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...BillyWilly.jpg

http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d4...k/IMG_0214.jpg

Love this thread! I hope more join in and post pictures! If it is still going this summer, I will post some of mine.