[StaceyRosado]

I've always had and enjoyed my dirt floor barns. But if we get this house the building I plan on using for the goats has a concrete floor.

Beings I've never had one before, I dont know how to even think of what to do with it. Do I put shavings on top? should I put some kind of special stuff on top to protect the concrete? Im kind of at a loss on how to properly care for a concrete floor.

 

[AmyBoogie]

We have concrete.
Berries sweep up easy, we don't put anything down (some of our herd is Angoras) though we have raised wooden places for them to lay on. We put a fan on the floor during the day and the pee dries but we also use DE that helps.

Find out where they prefer to pee and put the beds elsewhere. Put the hay feeder over the pee area if you want the waste to sop up pee or not over the pee area if you want them to use waste as bedding.

 

[MsScamp]

No, you don't need to put anything on to protect the concrete. Be advised of a couple of things, though. Concrete transfers cold in the winter time - especially if the building is fully enclosed. I have a shed with a concrete floor that is about 10-15 degrees colder than the outside temperature. 2nd thing is if something happens and you can't get it cleaned out regularly, wood shaving tend to dry and have to be chipped off the floor. It doesn't take that long for it to happen, either. I made that mistake once, and now I only use straw or old hay in that shed. Depending on what you are using it for, you might want to consider stall mats to help keep the cold from seeping through the concrete and to make cleaning easier. On the bright side, concrete is a dream to sanitize! Spray it down with bleach or iodine mixed with water, let it dry, and you're good to go.

 

[TDG-Farms]

Would also like to add that you should have it slopped with drain canals. But totally support the conducts cold statement. Stall mats are good but my thinking is, why concrete at all when you still have to lay down bedding regardless. The only place I have concrete under animals is my baby pens inside my heated barn and even then there is a 1" rubber stall mat and I bed with half a bag of pine shavings (ceder can cause respiratory problems) pre 5x5 pen and then 1/3 to 1/2 bale of straw ontop of that. The shavings soak up the pee and the straw gives a good barrier so they are off the wet shavings.

 

[StaceyRosado]

like I said ITS AN EXISTING STRUCTURE. So no its not my first choice on flooring but its already there and Im not knocking it down or letting it just sit there if I can utilize it for my goats adn I know a lot of people do use concrete floors.

Thanks GoatCrazy for the tip on cold - I will look into stall mats for sure. I do like shavings so I wonder if I can put straw down first and then shavings on top? for until we get the stall mats that is.

note: I will only have 5-6 mini goats or possibly even less depending.

 

[ThreeHavens]

We have concrete in the back barn. I much prefer dirt, but the concrete works. I put shavings on top, clean out completely once a week. I also put baking soda on the pee spots, and bleach before kidding. Really, it's not bad at all. Not a whole lot of difference from the dirt, other than the pee spots.

 

[.:Linz:.]

We have concrete in our barn. I do shavings on the bottom, straw on the top. In the winter I just do deep bedding to combat the cold. Like others said, it is easy to clean - we just scrape it out and pressure wash it all.

I like the idea of the raised sleeping platforms though... something to think about!

 

[happybleats]

I like the idea of building a wood platform to get them off the hard concrete, it sure can be hard on the bones.....of course they pee any where so that wood might get a bit yucky if not able to clean often..

 

[AmyBoogie]

I waited on the platform until they chose their pee spots. So far there is no peeing on the wood. poop, but no pee (watch now that I've said that, they'll be peeing on it today) There is an 8 foot section of stall that no one at all pees in and then another 4 foot section so we put the platforms there. I need to choose one for the kid stall and then I'll make the platform raised higher in such a way that the kids can hide under them and I'll bed underneath with shavings and straw. Right now the platforms are only 4 inches off the ground but thats enough for now.

We did use shavings+straw but now that I have Angoras and they're all mixed in together, I had to figure something else out so I can keep the fleeces clean.

 

[StaceyRosado]

mine always peed ON the bedding. Even as I cleaned it out they would go over and actually pee on the pile. If I cleaned out the barn and tried to put down bedding where they didnt pee they went and peed on the bedding. So that doesnt work for my goats. Its amazing yours actually pick a spot to pee

 

[AmyBoogie]

We are looking to get one more goat this year and there are kids in the spring so I fully know that my system may fail at some point. They do seem to like to pee mostly on the wasted hay. Once we stopped using shavings, they got more particular about peeing and only peed on the waste hay. It's a bummer because it makes it unusable for other animals but at least I have spots to dry out and not the whole barn usually.

 

[Brink4]

I personally would love the concrete. Easy to clean and spray out. We are getting ready to build our barn in the near future and plan on concrete floors. Best of luck to you

 

[ThreeHavens]

I do bedding over the whole surface. They do have spots that they chose to pee in, but the poop is everywhere.

 

[toth boer goats]

Yes, you have to have your bedding pretty thick in order for the goats to be more comfortable and to absorb their pee.
If you put the bedding on thin, it is like they are on just concrete.

We have a tractor and just scrape it out, it makes things easy.

With dirt floors, I am scraping out some of the flooring with the yuck.

 

[nancy d]

Stall mats is excellent idea! The only draw back for us is we dont have a tractor & those things are impossible to move with manual woman power alone.
Deep bedding and/or pallets on whatever base you have.

 

[sweetgoats]

Stall matts are a great idea. I know when I am at our State fair for several days they seem to move a lot slower at the end, I think because they are sore and not use to the hard ground.

 

[ksalvagno]

You could always buy the rubber mats that interlock together. You can get them at Sam's club. One side is primary colors for kids and the other side is solid black. Not as tough as the heavy stall mats but easier to pick up and should do the trick to at least get you through winter.

I think it is just going to take you trying different things to see what you like. You will also have to see how the drainage of the concrete will be. Since there is nothing you can change, it will take a few tries of things to get it all figured out.

When we first moved to our last home, we had a barn on it already with a concrete floor. We had alpacas at the time and they do pee/poop in one spot but it was a nightmare to clean out because they didn't grade the flooring well and the one drain in the barn was clogged. So the water took forever to drain out and was almost impossible to hose out. Then the water just stood right where the alpacas went in and out of the barn and then there was mud for days. The next year we had a barn built and that one had a thick rock/limestone base so the urine just soaked down in. The limestone eventually kind of turns to dirt too.

 

[laurenlewis24]

I have an ooolllldddd barn made of concrete floors and large cinder block structure. I don't have any drains and by now the floor is a bit hard to shovel up because of cracks and such. What I do is get a good layer of sand...yes SAND..and mix DE in it. This is my base and it adds a bit more cusioning than shavings or straw. Once you have a good 3-4 inches of sand (which will last over a year) you can then add a layer of shavings. This makes it easy to clean out and very comfy for the goats. You can also add straw year round or in winter if need be. I have used this with my horses and now my goats. You can even just use sand and with horses I use a regular poop shovel but with goats you can use a stall rake with fine mesh attached to it to catch the poo but let the sand run through. Similar to a giant cat litter scooper.

 

[MsScamp]

Thanks GoatCrazy for the tip on cold - I will look into stall mats for sure. I do like shavings so I wonder if I can put straw down first and then shavings on top? for until we get the stall mats that is.

No problem! I would think that straw first with shavings on top should work very well.

 

[MsScamp]

The only draw back for us is we dont have a tractor & those things are impossible to move with manual woman power alone.

Nancy, have you considered cutting the stall mats into strips or squares that would be manageable by hand, then fitting them back together?