# Toy ideas!



## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

We'll start weaning the babies in about 2-3 weeks. We have 4 boys we plan to wean 8-11 weeks old. Have 2 boys from a set of triplets we need to pull as soon as they are 8-9 weeks <wearing mama down to skin & bones!>.

I have a pen in the back I plan to put them in, I need to redo the shelter, but I"d like to build something they can play on to help keep them entertained.

These are percentage boer boys.

There are a lot of tires behind the pen in a pile that we haven't had hauled off, also have access to pallets, and if we could find a way to get them up from the woods, logs.

Any ideas? Anyone make anything from scrap stuff laying around? If so pictures would be great. I'm just not sure what I should do yet. 
Eventually we'll just be keeping our kids market wethers in there.


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## goatgirl132 (Oct 18, 2012)

Bricks, barrles, tables, sea saw, little tikes stuff, dog houses, a lot of people get elective spooles, old tires
Take a milk jug fill it with rocks and hand it on a fince.
Arrange the piles like you would for police dog training for them to climb on and in


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## Frosty (Feb 13, 2010)

Make sure the pallets dont have spaces in that they can get their little legs caught in.


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## happybleats (Sep 12, 2010)

Had one person say she glues roof tiles on a little tikes slide...keeps them playing and their hooves in good shape...I might try it !!!


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## Scottyhorse (Feb 11, 2013)

Ours like our old christmas trees... lol
For scratching, you can take a large push broom brush, and nail it vertically on a fence post, or their house or something.


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## milkmaid (Sep 15, 2010)

Good stout logs of varying lengths, set on end in a row. Make sure they won't fall over! If that is a concern, they can be buried in the ground.


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## IONFarm (Feb 12, 2013)

We just did that last weekend for the kids. We had an electrical spool that we made into a seesaw with a board and took some chunks of cut wood and put some on the ends and some on the sides. The babies are having a ball with their new playground.


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## GoatGirlMO (Aug 13, 2010)

We sank three old tires, so they standup but are almost half way buried. They are parallel to each other and about a tire's space apart. 

We have three tires, on their sides, pushed up next to each other and filled with dirt so they are solid-topped. These tires range in size from a regular car tire to a very wide tire--it is almost hip-high to me, on its side. 

We have a large tire, on its side, filled with clean play sand. The kiddos love it! 

We have an old giant drum that has been cut in half that they love to jump on because it is slippery and hard to stay on. 

And we have random chunks of railroad ties that are laid across each other to make balance beams. 

It is so fun to watch them play!


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

Wow all fantastic ideas, thanks!!!! Once the weather improves a little I will get out there and start figuring it out. I might skim craigslist free listings and see what I can come up with as well. I dont' want them being in there with nothing to do.


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## goatgirl132 (Oct 18, 2012)

Oh no you never want them bored
that's like leaving a kid/ teen with nothing to do it leads to no good!!!


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## sharkespeare (Jun 14, 2012)

goatgirl132 said:


> Oh no you never want them bored
> that's like leaving a kid/ teen with nothing to do it leads to no good!!!


I can attest to that! Mine live in a downstairs room in my house with hard floor that I can sweep so it's similar to a barn set-up, and they used to have a computer chair that they loved to jump and lay on. Well, the bigger they got, the quicker they realized it was more fun to jump onto the chair at a running leap and make it go rolling across the room! Once they even pushed it in front of the door and one was rubbing his horns on the doorknob and unintentionally (I like to think) locked me out! Little brats.

Speaking of, can anyone suggest to me something that they'll be able to rub their horns on? They kept doing it to this one spot on my wall so much that the spot just caved in today.  The wall needed to be fixed anyway, but now I'm nervous about them getting their heads caught in it. I tried my best to block it off, but it's only a temporary fix. Argh.


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## goatgirl132 (Oct 18, 2012)

Try taking a coupple of the old broom ends like the old old yellow broom ends that did nothing and put them on the wall for the scratching thing.

Why keep them out side inside instead of out side?


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## sharkespeare (Jun 14, 2012)

That's a good idea, thanks! They weren't supposed to be living with me initially, just until the youngest was weaned off his bottle. Then they were supposed to be boarded on a farm with nigerian dwarves (I have pygmies), but the agreement fell through when the woman realized they had horns, and decided she would rather not have horned goats on her farm, which I can't blame her for. I talked to my vet about de-horning but she told me all the risks and I decided against it, so now I have to find them a new place, which I'm hoping to do when spring rolls around! It's hard though because they're both uncastrated bucks. They're very sweet, but rambunctious. It's like they're perpetually in their terrible twos! Luckily I have about two acres so I just take them outside with their halters on, and we have an excellent vet who comes to the house when they need check-ups.


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## S+S Homestead (Jul 23, 2012)

Cinder blocks also make great play toys. You can pile them up in different configurations that can be changed occasionally to make it more interesting. They also help with keeping hooves trimmed.


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## goatgirl132 (Oct 18, 2012)

Why not build a little cage? I kept 3 wethers in a 10x12 cage
just an idealee

If you did cinder blocks just be shure to put something under it like grip stuff for under bath room right so they don't dammage your.floors but the goats and move them around like if they were on towles


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## PearcePastures (Oct 6, 2012)

Have you ever checked out that DoubleDurango website---they have the COOLEST toys ever. DH hates when I look at that page because then I started getting more ideas about what we should build.


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## sharkespeare (Jun 14, 2012)

I've heard good things about cinder blocks, and the hoof benefits would definitely come in handy with my boys. It can be a challenge to trim them because they hate being separated - the minute you start walking out the door with one, the other one will cry nonstop until you bring them back! Yet if you don't separate them, you'll be trimming one's hooves while getting headbutted or nibbled on by the other one. All you have to do is _look _ at the former bottle baby and his little mouth will start moving, searching for something on you to chew! lmao. I do have one concern about cinder blocks though -- what can I plug the holes with? If it were outside I would use dirt, but do you think there's anything I can use for indoors? I'd hate to get them a new toy only to have them to hurt their legs on it. Same thing for tires, because we have an old one I might be able to use.

As far as cages go, I do have a dog kennel outside! Unfortunately it's full of small rocks that I just know would end up in a goat mouth, and when I asked my vet she said the type of fencing on the kennel wouldn't be safe for the goats if they got their horns stuck in them, which I believe. We also have a lot of coyotes in the area because our land is connected to the woods. Thanks for the tip about the cinder block grips! I hadn't even thought of that, but now I will absolutely be doing that if I get them.

The Double Durango website is awesome, I love those wooden bridges and playgrounds. I would fill my whole basement with them if I could!

Here's a pic of my kids when they were a bit smaller and still fit in their favorite chair


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## PearcePastures (Oct 6, 2012)

Yeah, after I saw all of their cool stuff a few years ago, we went out and built this....not as jazzy as theirs but it is so fun for the goats, kids, and even our LGD.


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## HoosierShadow (Apr 20, 2010)

lol that looks like a blast! Sadly I won't buy anything for it right now, I want to try and use scrap stuff vs. throwing that stuff away. BUT, I will search on craigslist for free stuff that I can use especially after my SUV is fixed <hopefully tomorrow!>.

Waiting for the weather to warm up and dry up a little, we've had rain and/or snow showers every day for the past week, so miserable. As soon as I have an afternoon I'll go and put some of these ideas to work. I am a visualizer, haha, I need to go out there with the objects and start pieceing the plan together, I can't sit at my desk and do it.

As long as they have something to jump on and off, and have a little fun...


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## PiccoloGoat (Sep 10, 2008)

I have a few sleepers (big wood things) in my backyard that I plan to get cinder blocks for and make so fun places for them to jump. 
Also thinking of making a simple see saw; long flat plank of wood and a large round section of log screwed underneath in the middle so it can tilt and they can play with their balance.


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## goatgirl132 (Oct 18, 2012)

With the sea saw that's all we did 
Wr took a bored and screwed to to a big pic pipe like thing 
So the border dosent move but the pic pipe roles back and forth


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## PiccoloGoat (Sep 10, 2008)

Exactly  

I've seen other seesaws built on here but they are much too fancy and look hard to build xD


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## PearcePastures (Oct 6, 2012)

Yeah, if we had to buy stuff, the goats would not be as entertained. DH pulled scrap lumber out of dumpsters at home construction sites when he was doing garage installations. You would not believe how much gets pitched.


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## goatglo (Mar 1, 2013)

we have a few cinder blocks stacked up like stairs that lead to a balance beam. they love to run up the stairs and dart across the balance beam! we also have a pretty big diameter log (probably about 2.5 feet across) and they'll get up on it and clop around, i think, because it makes a hollow sound.


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## LaZyAcres (Aug 25, 2010)

Here's a platform my boyfriend built last summer. It's tall enough for me to walk under! A lot of the wood was scrap...if you look real close you can see the curve in the far 4x4. Also, you can't tell because the snow is covering it now, but right in front of this is a pile of "bad" wood scraps left over from other home improvement projects. With nails/screws removed, they are an excellent little moving mountain that the girls climb all over.


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