[HoosierShadow]

Thought I'd ask as a last resort idea...

We need a covered hay area. Planning to build one of those cattle panel/pallet shelters
<somewhat like on this link: http://thefreerangelife.com/tag/pallet-shelters/ >

Planning to put a roll bale of hay in the center of it so goats can come in from the front/back to eat. We'll probably use pallets or something of that sort around the roll bale to prevent eating from the bottom and hopefully help with waste.

Don't have a lot of $$ for this project as we have so many other things going on. Cattle panels are $25 as it is and no luck finding them used.

Anyway, thought I'd ask if there are any other ideas? I plan on enclosing the ends a bit to help with wind/rain. Also we'll figure something out on the sides so no drafts come in.

Just starting to get the chance to put some real thought into this. I'm hoping we can start on this early next month as our home repair fiasco from a water leak last month should finally be done by next weekend!

 

[liz]

Candace... Those panels have gotten pricey in the last few years!
What you can do though is get the cheaper panels that aren't as tall but still the same 16 foot length, since you already make awesome use of pallets, and want to have both ends open to allow feeding from front and back, place the short pallet walls closer together so the panels can be cut to 8 foot sections, secured to the top of the pallets so the arch isn't very high, just enough to be able to walk under. You can get 2 panels and get a good 4 pieces to be able to do this, the area should be wide enough for a round bale and deep enough to allow the goats to eat under shelter from both ends. Taking a length of field fence and wrapping it around the bale can keep them from wasting as they would only be able to pull so much out at a time.