# Show me your pens or barn set up please



## knightrider

Hi...I don't have any goats yet,but am looking at getting 2 ND does soon when my fencing is up. I've been looking at pictures and it looks like some folks have pens...have seen everything from chainlink fence to horse wire, to little rooms.

Can you post pictures that I can see to give me ideas on how to set things up? I currently have a big barn that was used once for cattle and perhaps horses, but it needs lots of work. I do have stalls that I could use but the walls need to be built up...

How many ND's could fit in a stall at night? And how many ND's can I have on an acre to an acre and a half (with a few more to come fenced in?)

Thanks!


----------



## RunAround

I don't really have pictures, but I have live cams that sorta show my stall setup.


----------



## J.O.Y. Farm

I will get and post pics tomorrow evning....


----------



## Breezy-Trail

I plan on doing just that...but it won't be today.
I will be posting pics of my new milk parlor, main pen(with sleeping and feeding area), indoor exercise area with hanging water buckets, creep area, kid warming barrel that I made in use, and overall just some updated pics of the herd.
Also pics of indoor and outdoor play toys made out of pallets and stuff I got for free.
Pics of there "bench" which they like to go under to sleep or hide from the big girls.

I am also going to cut a whole in the barn wall and make what I call a "poop Chute".
It will have a small door of about 2ftx2ft and from there a metal "Chute" made out of tin and all I do is sweep it into a pile and put it down the chute. Go outside and it is only 2 ft from the pile and I just get it onto the pile and the chute cleaned off, simple.
It is kinda more of an idea now but I am hoping to make it work.

So many pics coming soon. Hopefully sometimes between tomorrow and Friday.
In case you don't see it I will post here with a link to the thread once it is created.


----------



## nubians2

This is my boys housing. It was a playhouse for my son that he outgrew. The main area is 8 X 8 that has a half door. I room for grain storage and their minerals on the other side. They love the tires, the rabbit hutch is gone and we have added a fruit bin in front of the castle that they play on too. The fenced area is 40 X 70 which is perfect for two nubian boys.


----------



## milk and honey

Holy Goat! I want to live there!


----------



## Jessica84

Did you build that for your son, or was it a kit? either way AWSOME!!!! After that pic, no chance of me taking a pic of the set up I have! lol


----------



## freedomstarfarm

:shocked: Nubians that is really cool!!


----------



## freedomstarfarm

Here are the stalls we just built last week. We did a bunch more this weekend but I forgot to take photos. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.267425249999634.64025.121645621244265&type=1


----------



## nubians2

Thank you! It was designed and built by my husband and son. We built it high up to try and keep snakes out so then floor is wood. We are talking about cutting off the legs now and lowering it to the ground and taking away the hall and tower area. The floor there is getting very spongy and probably not safe. I did the paint job. We have to stay similar to the house color which is the brown but he wanted the castle look to it. When we got the goats we just fenced the area. It was a shame to waste the building and the goats love it. Some of the windows open so when I am cleaning it out it is nice to air it too on hot days. 

Please show your pictures! I just wanted to show how sometimes the most unusual things can become great houses for goats. Yesterday I saw a free playhouse on craiglist with windows. It was 4 X 7 which would be a nice little shelter for pygmies and it was free. So it doesn't always have to be a huge extravagant building or barn.


----------



## knightrider

Love that former playhouse idea! So innovative. And also the stalls are great...

So, I've been worried about space requirements and it seems like I could potentially keep my future ND's on limited paddock space initially? I have one paddock that I'm thinking would be the initial paddock that is probably 75x150-200' and I was worried that wouldn't be enough for the two.

My barn stalls all need some work, but I like the gates you have...That looks great!

Would love to see more ideas...in particular any pens that are not your normal pasture...thinking I may have to subdivide some space behind the barn for when I want my horses in the pasture (until everyone gets along).

Thanks!


----------



## Stacie1205

My boys have dog houses and the girls share a hog farrowing hut. But we plan on building a barn this year. The hog hut is nice and cozy with a wood floor and I have had up to 9? goats in there, most ND but a few nubian too. They stay nice and snuggled


----------



## DavyHollow

I have a small shed for my girls, the NDs share one regular sized breed's stall (two in there).

My shed was originally for alpines, so I had to put in a few cement blocks and stuff to make sure the NDs could reach everything lol

For the pen, I thik I have 300ft of fencing in a sort of pentagon shape, with a few little trees.

Here are some pictures:
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos- ... 5374_n.jpg
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash ... 7372_n.jpg








http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash ... 4955_n.jpg


----------



## rkl4570

Dang after the pics of the goat castle I dont wanna post pics of our pens! We don't even have any solid structures, just 2 10X10ft runs with big tarps on top for a barn and milking space. We have 2 kinda small pens, one for the boys and one for the girls. The girls have free run of the bigger pen plus both covered runs. My main chicken coop is in a corner of the boys pen and up against one of the covered runs, if we have a cold windy night I just put up tarps on the chicken pen which also protects the one run and makes it mostly draft-free. Its not the best set-up...


----------



## Jessica84

^^^Im with you rkl4570.....I have plyboard and tarps lol. Its kinda hard to explain how I have things since I kinda build little buildings as I go.....Ill try to sit down and draw it out for you......


----------



## rkl4570

Yea thats the way our pens are, it started out with a bunch of those dog run pannels. Thats what most of our fencing is, except the newest part of the girls pen (a long skinny section) is 'no-climb' horse fence. We want toget electric fencing and go down into the woods, but at the moment we cant afford the solar box thing and we have to cut down the big cherry trees and clear things out a bit.


----------



## Jessica84

Ok, please dont judge, they all stay warm and happy

The biggest problem I have is, well lack of funds lol, and where I live sucks. To get a permit is hard and costs a lot of money here, and it does not matter if it is a front step, if it is permanet you need a permit and your taxes go up, so everything I do can not be attached to the ground. To be honest If it was summer would look better with out the tarps lol.

But ok hope you can read the one I drew out. 
The big pen where the portable houses are is 10 beef panels long X 5 beef panels wide (1600X80 feet)
The big house, I do not remember how big, I think it is 12X20. The portable houses, 4 of them are 4X4, the creep feeder and the 'a house' are 8X8, kidding stalls are 4X8, and the little lick area, I just had a extra piece of plyboard so put 2 post in the ground and put it on top. This is not my ideal set up, but works for now, I would like to have about 30 kidding stalls, 15 on each side with a row down the middle then put a roof on it, then have the big lot in sections with a portable house in each section. That way if one is sick, kidding ect. they will have their own little spot, but it works for now till I start to get the 'big bucks' lol and build it that way. But hope this gives you a idea


----------



## Jessica84

ran out of room.....


----------



## rkl4570

Looks alot nicer than ours!!!! I wish we had those kind of shelters. Im not posting pics though, Im in the middle of spring cleaning throughout all of the pens, so they look horrible! We let it deep pack so they have dry places to sleep and to have the bottom layer become mostly mulched for the garden in the spring, since theyr pens are on a slightly sloped place on the hill. But it sucks in the spring...


----------



## Jessica84

I say what ever works! and if they are dry it works lol. I got my goats in the winter last year, we had 3 goats when I was little and dont remember them having a house, so I thought the goats would just go stand under a tree with the cows, SO WRONG!! I was making any kind of house out of what ever I could find, a roll bar and a tarp make a very nice house lol


----------



## rkl4570

We have one goat house, it was here when we moved in. Its a giant tube, the top half of a small plastic grain silo! (at least thats what we're guessing, it has lines and numbers on the side of increments of 100 lbs) The base wasnt here. The goats absolutely love it. Otherwise we have 6 layer plastic covered by tarps. It does have a few drips, but plenty of dry spots, plus some dog crates which certain ones love.


----------



## knightrider

Thanks everyone for sharing!


----------

