We are getting ready to pour the cement floor in our new barn. Being new to goats I am not sure on if I want cement in the pen and kidding stalls? Also we are limited on space so what's the minimum square feet for kidding pens and inside pen space for 4 goats with the option for 6. Thanks alot
Views: 2582
You need to be a member of Nigerian Dwarf Dairy Goats to add comments!
Thanks so much for posting this, Angela! We are building a new barn (14 by 28) and definitely going to pour concrete where the milking stand is going to be, as well as where the hay and grain are going to be stored. I haven't decided whether or not I want concrete poured over the entire floor or to leave the stalls dirt. So, I was happy to see you had posted this. :) Either way, I'm going to line the stalls with rubber stall mats. The existing stalls are dirt floors with rubber mats and I really like them... for the most part. Little bugs like to live under the mats sometimes, especially during the summer, but it keeps the stalls cleaner and the dirt from escaping.
The new stalls are going to either be 7 x 7 or 7 x 8, but I have a kidding stall that is 6 x 6 and it works just fine for a doe and her kids or two full grown does.
Georges birthday would have been a cute idea! Hate you had to cut on the tree. I know it doesn't feel good to those of us who appreciate those things.
Don't think I would ever have to worry about my toilets freezing up down here in Mobile, Al. or where I am hoping to move to in Mississippi. But you are right, I can see that being a problem in some places. You are right about those tank floats. I hadn't thought about that in ages but the oldtimers did use to use them in stock tanks. I imagine lots of folks still do.
But I don't want to have to worry about cleaning them either. The toilets would just be so easy to clean and I was thinking that if I rigged them up right I could have them all drain into regular sewer pipe just like in a house and then run the drain off to a garden irrigating system. Since they wouldn't actually be used for toilets all the water flushed through them, just to wash them out would be good garden water. Even if the goats poop in them a little like they do with buckets it would be good fertilizer in the garden. I really hope to get to do this one day (soon, I hope) since I thought of it as an original idea. I am sure it would be a big hit with people and we would get lots of laughs out of it! I think that's pretty cool that you thought of using one too! Great minds think alike and all that!
That all sounds great, Margaret, except the toilets for water. If the weather never gets into the twenties, that would likely work very well. However, freezing weather will freeze the water in the toilets and break them unless they are stainless steel. My grandfather used a toilet float in a water tank for their flock of laying hens and it worked very well for keeping the water at a good level but, in eastern Washington, the toilet tank itself would not have worked because of freezing. I like the idea, though, and have considered it for my own hens (a child-size toilet would be perfect). I probably didn't use it because when I bought this house, they had put antifreeze in the toilet tanks to keep them from freezing though I really doubt that would have happened since we rarely get temps in the 20s in southwest Washington. For the barn, I'm still considering concrete floors so I can put in-floor heating in - after reading everything said months ago when I asked, I'm still going back and forth on dirt or concrete. The girls are currently in the covered patio which has a ballast stone (block) floor and it has worked very well. I do need to expand their part of it before kidding, however as there will be two goats to keep away from kidding mom this year and two goats and kids to keep away from second kidding mom.
Oh, and the cherry tree, we cut it down to 4-1/2 feet on Tuesday. Afterward, I thought we should have waited until Friday (George's birthday). Right now the challenge is keeping the girls from eating the buds off the branches when I let them out in the yard until we get it cleaned up. The trunk is moveable so the tree could not have been healthy as no healthy tree with a tap work could be wiggled, even a little bit. Still, I feel badly about it and there is a huge hole on that fence line - to be filled with the barn and now the size I want, not shorter because of the tree. Trees are not made to be cut down. That was one of five trees planted where only two should have been; when they are five years old, it is fine but at 50 years old, it is overcrowding and scraggly trees.
I can't give you personal experience on this because I don't have a barn yet, and won't until I move off of my few acres to some real acreage! I don't really need one were I live because it is soooo hot! I do use pens about 5/6 by 16 for kidding with a shelter at the end taking up about 5-6 feet of that! Deb is right about the extra width being easier on us and giving the goats better ability to stay away from neighbors. And in case you want to use them for bigger goats or other animals at any point!
But I did want to tell you, depending on just how limited your space is that I do know of one very big farm with lots of acreage and space and pastures and huge shelters, but they use kidding pens that are only about 5x5! Go figure. I have seen the set up and how they fit in there and it really seems to work well! They don't appear to cramped or anything! I am sure that they don't stay in there to long either and it is a very open air sort of set up!
I guess you would say it is like the difference between having a small house with lots of walls around the rooms and the same square footage with a very open floor plan. If that makes any sense. It is so well organized and appropriate for her set up that they seem snug and comfy and are soon out!
I guess what I am trying to explain is that it is not all about square feet! I don't know where you are or how tightly sealed of a structure you are talking about but things like that really matter too! Your weather and therefor how long they may be in there, the shape of the pen, square versus rectangle, how closed in, solid separations versus hog panels for instance all have a bearing on comfort and ability to move around! Even the difference in those floors will have an effect. Cement is hard and requires more ability to move around or have a nice thick bed to relieve stress on the body, yet dirt to can get really gross in a very small pen.
One other thing you really need to consider before deciding is how you will provide Food water and supplements. The space they take up in a pen is important! If you will have hay racks feeders and or waterers IN each pen that will eat up valuable space! I would, in my ideal barn have everything I could on the outside of the pen! It is so much easier to keep things cleaner and unwasted! Plus, my big pet peeve: If I am not available, and need someone to care for them they won't have strangers in their pens feeding them and the people won't be afraid etc. if all the care can be given from the outside of pens!
My ideal barn will have lots of toilets! Yep! I have a dream of all toilets for watering! They are perfect! I can scrub them with a brush and flush and they are clean! They auto refill as water is drank! Just the perfect automatic watering system, don't ya'll think? I thought of that one years ago! Leans a whole new meaning to the thought of your pet drinking out of the toilet, doesn't it? LOL!
Oddly enough, our barn has some stalls with cement and some with dirt. The only thing I don't like about the dirt stalls is that they wind up with large sinkholes in the middle. We try to NOT remove dirt when cleaning them out, but it appears to be inevitable ... a tiny bit each time starts to add up over the years.
I have kidding pens that are 4 X 10 and 5 X 10. I really prefer the 5-ft wide pens for my own comfort, and if you think you might ever have standard size goats, four feet is really too small, and you can wind up with a doe trying to give birth with her back end up against the wall, fence, or whatever separates the pens. We have pig panels separating our kidding pens so that the does can see each other, but they can't stick their heads through and eat other's placentas and things like that.
My barn floors are dirt. I like it, because it makes deep litter bedding easy. I think it smells less too. Of course, I have fewer goats than the friend I have with cement floors in HER barn, which is the only comparison I have.
Replies
Thanks so much for posting this, Angela! We are building a new barn (14 by 28) and definitely going to pour concrete where the milking stand is going to be, as well as where the hay and grain are going to be stored. I haven't decided whether or not I want concrete poured over the entire floor or to leave the stalls dirt. So, I was happy to see you had posted this. :) Either way, I'm going to line the stalls with rubber stall mats. The existing stalls are dirt floors with rubber mats and I really like them... for the most part. Little bugs like to live under the mats sometimes, especially during the summer, but it keeps the stalls cleaner and the dirt from escaping.
The new stalls are going to either be 7 x 7 or 7 x 8, but I have a kidding stall that is 6 x 6 and it works just fine for a doe and her kids or two full grown does.
Hope you have fun finishing up your new barn!
Georges birthday would have been a cute idea! Hate you had to cut on the tree. I know it doesn't feel good to those of us who appreciate those things.
Don't think I would ever have to worry about my toilets freezing up down here in Mobile, Al. or where I am hoping to move to in Mississippi. But you are right, I can see that being a problem in some places. You are right about those tank floats. I hadn't thought about that in ages but the oldtimers did use to use them in stock tanks. I imagine lots of folks still do.
But I don't want to have to worry about cleaning them either. The toilets would just be so easy to clean and I was thinking that if I rigged them up right I could have them all drain into regular sewer pipe just like in a house and then run the drain off to a garden irrigating system. Since they wouldn't actually be used for toilets all the water flushed through them, just to wash them out would be good garden water. Even if the goats poop in them a little like they do with buckets it would be good fertilizer in the garden. I really hope to get to do this one day (soon, I hope) since I thought of it as an original idea. I am sure it would be a big hit with people and we would get lots of laughs out of it! I think that's pretty cool that you thought of using one too! Great minds think alike and all that!
That all sounds great, Margaret, except the toilets for water. If the weather never gets into the twenties, that would likely work very well. However, freezing weather will freeze the water in the toilets and break them unless they are stainless steel. My grandfather used a toilet float in a water tank for their flock of laying hens and it worked very well for keeping the water at a good level but, in eastern Washington, the toilet tank itself would not have worked because of freezing. I like the idea, though, and have considered it for my own hens (a child-size toilet would be perfect). I probably didn't use it because when I bought this house, they had put antifreeze in the toilet tanks to keep them from freezing though I really doubt that would have happened since we rarely get temps in the 20s in southwest Washington. For the barn, I'm still considering concrete floors so I can put in-floor heating in - after reading everything said months ago when I asked, I'm still going back and forth on dirt or concrete. The girls are currently in the covered patio which has a ballast stone (block) floor and it has worked very well. I do need to expand their part of it before kidding, however as there will be two goats to keep away from kidding mom this year and two goats and kids to keep away from second kidding mom.
Oh, and the cherry tree, we cut it down to 4-1/2 feet on Tuesday. Afterward, I thought we should have waited until Friday (George's birthday). Right now the challenge is keeping the girls from eating the buds off the branches when I let them out in the yard until we get it cleaned up. The trunk is moveable so the tree could not have been healthy as no healthy tree with a tap work could be wiggled, even a little bit. Still, I feel badly about it and there is a huge hole on that fence line - to be filled with the barn and now the size I want, not shorter because of the tree. Trees are not made to be cut down. That was one of five trees planted where only two should have been; when they are five years old, it is fine but at 50 years old, it is overcrowding and scraggly trees.
I can't give you personal experience on this because I don't have a barn yet, and won't until I move off of my few acres to some real acreage! I don't really need one were I live because it is soooo hot! I do use pens about 5/6 by 16 for kidding with a shelter at the end taking up about 5-6 feet of that! Deb is right about the extra width being easier on us and giving the goats better ability to stay away from neighbors. And in case you want to use them for bigger goats or other animals at any point!
But I did want to tell you, depending on just how limited your space is that I do know of one very big farm with lots of acreage and space and pastures and huge shelters, but they use kidding pens that are only about 5x5! Go figure. I have seen the set up and how they fit in there and it really seems to work well! They don't appear to cramped or anything! I am sure that they don't stay in there to long either and it is a very open air sort of set up!
I guess you would say it is like the difference between having a small house with lots of walls around the rooms and the same square footage with a very open floor plan. If that makes any sense. It is so well organized and appropriate for her set up that they seem snug and comfy and are soon out!
I guess what I am trying to explain is that it is not all about square feet! I don't know where you are or how tightly sealed of a structure you are talking about but things like that really matter too! Your weather and therefor how long they may be in there, the shape of the pen, square versus rectangle, how closed in, solid separations versus hog panels for instance all have a bearing on comfort and ability to move around! Even the difference in those floors will have an effect. Cement is hard and requires more ability to move around or have a nice thick bed to relieve stress on the body, yet dirt to can get really gross in a very small pen.
One other thing you really need to consider before deciding is how you will provide Food water and supplements. The space they take up in a pen is important! If you will have hay racks feeders and or waterers IN each pen that will eat up valuable space! I would, in my ideal barn have everything I could on the outside of the pen! It is so much easier to keep things cleaner and unwasted! Plus, my big pet peeve: If I am not available, and need someone to care for them they won't have strangers in their pens feeding them and the people won't be afraid etc. if all the care can be given from the outside of pens!
My ideal barn will have lots of toilets! Yep! I have a dream of all toilets for watering! They are perfect! I can scrub them with a brush and flush and they are clean! They auto refill as water is drank! Just the perfect automatic watering system, don't ya'll think? I thought of that one years ago! Leans a whole new meaning to the thought of your pet drinking out of the toilet, doesn't it? LOL!
Oddly enough, our barn has some stalls with cement and some with dirt. The only thing I don't like about the dirt stalls is that they wind up with large sinkholes in the middle. We try to NOT remove dirt when cleaning them out, but it appears to be inevitable ... a tiny bit each time starts to add up over the years.
I have kidding pens that are 4 X 10 and 5 X 10. I really prefer the 5-ft wide pens for my own comfort, and if you think you might ever have standard size goats, four feet is really too small, and you can wind up with a doe trying to give birth with her back end up against the wall, fence, or whatever separates the pens. We have pig panels separating our kidding pens so that the does can see each other, but they can't stick their heads through and eat other's placentas and things like that.
My barn floors are dirt. I like it, because it makes deep litter bedding easy. I think it smells less too. Of course, I have fewer goats than the friend I have with cement floors in HER barn, which is the only comparison I have.