# Goat Bedding and Shed



## ETgoatygirl (Mar 23, 2012)

Hi Everyone, I have a few questions about my goat shed. We just moved in to a new home, and the ladies have a new shed, which has a wooden floor. A friend of ours (and fellow goat enthusiast) said we should put down rubber matts (you know, the kind used for horse stalls) so that the floor wouldn't rot. Which was a great idea, so we did. I am now running into the problem that the shed is not staying clean for as long as my previous sheds did (with dirt floors). I have always used straw for there bedding. Is there another kind of bedding that works better with wood floors (meaning:absorbs more)? Right now it just seems to kind of sit on the matts.. Thank you.


----------



## Maggie (Nov 5, 2010)

Shavings will absorb a lot better than straw. You can always just put a layer of shavings under the straw as well. Are they the rubber matts that are several squares or one solid peice across the floor? When we had matts down on the floor they were aweful, the urine would just seep between the seems and then sit underneath the matts, it was a mess when we pulled the matts up.


----------



## JaLyn (Oct 10, 2012)

I use bedding that i buy from rural king and love it. It's so much easier to clean up, possibly a lil more expensive but worth it to me.


----------



## WillowGem (Aug 3, 2011)

I've tried both shavings and straw separately.
Now I use both, a layer of shavings under the straw...it really does absorb urine much better than straw alone.

I've used rubber mats on their sleeping shelf, and have now taken them out.
Once the urine gets under the mats it soaks into the wood and gets so stinky.


----------



## RMADairyGoats (Jun 20, 2011)

We use sand, it absords GREAT! I think paper shavings work really well too, except they're really dusty.


----------



## goathiker (Apr 14, 2011)

Yeah, wooden floors. Rubber mats will rot them out really fast. Shavings hide moisture but, don't soak it up well. It's all right there on the bottom of pack. Plus laying on shavings causes mastitis in your does. The very best thing you can do is make temporary tarp shelter or go one stall at a time which ever works. Strip everything out of the stall, scrub, drill 1/2 inch holes every foot down and across. Use a good deck sealer and seal the wood and the edges of the holes. Then use straw for bedding. If you don't drain the urine there is no way to keep your barn dry.


----------



## GoatsLive (Jul 1, 2012)

I don't use shavings or straw or rubber mats in my goat house. The floor is 3/4 inch plywood, and I cover it with regular coastal grass hay. My girls are potty trained and don't go in their house unless it's been raining all day. The grass hay absorbs the urine quite well and a single swipe with a wide rake cleans it right up. After a day of rain where they're stuck in their house, I rake it out and sprinkle some baking soda on any urine stains and let it sit for a few minutes and then sweep it out and replace with fresh hay.


----------



## Texas.girl (Dec 20, 2011)

GoatsLive said:


> My girls are potty trained and don't go in their house unless it's been raining all day.


How do you potty train a goat? Mine go anywhere at anytime. Does not matter who might be in the way.


----------



## GoatsLive (Jul 1, 2012)

Texas.girl said:


> How do you potty train a goat? Mine go anywhere at anytime. Does not matter who might be in the way.


I really didn't, it just kind of happened. If it's raining Molly will even hang her bottom out the door and do her business. I get very few goat berries in the house, and only after a protracted rain. Guess they just decided on their own they wanted to keep their house clean


----------



## liz (Oct 5, 2007)

Rubber mats are not a great thing with wood floors... I tried it 12 years ago when I thought that urine would end up rotting out the plywood floor in the 10x 10 shed that was put up.
The urine actually ended up trapped beneath the mat and just caused very bad ammonia smell. When my does would pee, they'd back up against a wall causing the urine to seep under the mat where it met the wall.
I ripped them all out and left the plywood floors bare, a layer of pine shavings over barn lime with wasted hay on top has proved to work very well here..and that plywood floor is still strong after 12 years.
I also keep my floors bare from late April to mid October...kid stalls are bare from May/June to February so that likely helps with keeping the wood from rotting as air is allowed to circulate.


----------



## goat luver 101 (Jul 19, 2011)

When we had horses, we would put these pellets on the floor of their stall to absorb the pee so the floor wouldn't get very wet. they worked great, they might work for you! http://www.drystall.com/best_pine.html

We had a wood floor in our goat shed, it started to rot really bad 2 years after we moved the goats in. Now it's the chicken coop and the goats have a new dirt shed instead.
HTH,


----------



## errogt (Nov 19, 2012)

I use wood pellets for my hens with a great result, so I tried the pellets with some straw on the top for my goats also. 

Is a great absorbent and neutralize the smell


----------



## ETgoatygirl (Mar 23, 2012)

*Thank you!!!*

Thank you all soo much for the advice!!! I really appreciate it. This weekend I will drill little holes in the wooden floor, put the mats back on top, and use shavings for bedding. I'll let you know how it works out for me.. Thanks again!


----------

