[Texaslass]

I am fed up with feeding. Lol. Okay, I am wondering how everyone feeds their animals.

It is so frustrating right now for me!! :GAAH: I read how some of you tether each goat to eat, but what if it's raining? My barn isn't big enough to tether every goat (nine does and doelings in the same pen right now), and when it's raining like today, everything is worse. It's muddy, mucky and gross. I also do not have collars for all of them.
I had to catch every one of the doelings this morning and stuff them into another shed that they are using at moment, so they could eat away from the other does. They fought the whole way because they didn't want to get wet going between the barns. :hair:
But we are about to close that one off and use it for breeding, so it's not going to be available long term. :/


And to top it off, one of the does that we milk every day decided she didn't need to be milked today, so I had to chase her around the whole yard a few times to catch her and get her on the stand.


Our barn is 16'x16', with one stall that is 8'x8' that we use for milking in. In the past it has also doubled as a kidding stall, lol. But next year we'll have a lot more does kidding hopefully, so we are going to need a lot more space.
We are going to try building stalls out of pallets here pretty soon. I keep thinking that it might be easier to feed everyone if we had more stalls. Is that what y'all do? I just can't seem to figure out how to make this easier.


Sorry for the long post/rant. Any advice on feeding or barn layout would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Texaslass]

Here's a shot of our main barn. As you can see, one side is not all the way closed in. I hope to close it in sometime, but I don't think that's going to happen right away.

 

[ksalvagno]

Setup is critical. I use portable panels and set up little areas. The gates are open when I want everyone to have access to all spaces and shut gates when I want to close someone in by themselves. Plus my shelter is closed in with doors and windows so I can easily shut everyone inside when I want.

 

[Texaslass]

We are considering taking down that stall and creating 2 or 3 smaller ones instead. What do y'all think of this design? I'm just brainstorming.

 

[ksalvagno]

Whatever works best for your needs. It looks good to me. Put the doors on so you can open them all the way to the wall so you can give them that space as general area too.

 

[Texaslass]

Yes, that makes sense. Definitely don't want the doors clogging up the walkway or anything. I'm excited about maybe remodeling the barn, but we may have to wait till it dries up and cools off a bit before we can do much. I hope to get started on some of it tomorrow.

 

[loggyacreslivestock]

When I chain mine up, they only have a very small spot. The chains are about 6-8 inches long, so they can't reach the neighbor's pans. So looking at your barn, I would place chains along the right wall, and across the front of those slats on the pen. Then, I have individual pans for each on that are over the fence pans from tractor supply. Each one gets his/ her own pan with individualized feed. The pans are hung over a 2x4 attached close to the wall so the lip of the pans stay tight and they *can't* knock the pans off. ( two of them bite their pan and lift it up to me, like , here, I want more, lol) I have 4 full size boer does on a 10 foot wall. Then, more on each adjacent wall. They can not lie down, or move much, so I stay right with them while chained up.

 

[Texaslass]

Thanks Julie, I will consider doing something like that, though I would like to avoid tethering if possible. It just seems very complicated to have to do that, especially if some of your goats do not like to be caught. :eyeroll: :shrug:

We will probably ditch that big hay feeder as well, it's taking up too much room. I have some ideas for smaller feeders that maybe won't waste as much too!

 

[Goats Rock]

When I chain mine up, they only have a very small spot. The chains are about 6-8 inches long, so they can't reach the neighbor's pans. So looking at your barn, I would place chains along the right wall, and across the front of those slats on the pen. Then, I have individual pans for each on that are over the fence pans from tractor supply. Each one gets his/ her own pan with individualized feed. The pans are hung over a 2x4 attached close to the wall so the lip of the pans stay tight and they *can't* knock the pans off. ( two of them bite their pan and lift it up to me, like , here, I want more, lol) I have 4 full size boer does on a 10 foot wall. Then, more on each adjacent wall. They can not lie down, or move much, so I stay right with them while chained up.

That is about how I do mine, too! Sometimes it is a pain, but they all know to go to their "places"! I tie up 12 right now!

 

[GoatieGranny]

We have 3 areas for 4 goats. The two kids eat out of the same bowl, and each doe has her own pen to eat and sleep. We use collars so we can grab onto them if we need to. We've also made some simple leashes to walk them to the pasture, or just to walk with them around the yard for fun.

Your plan with the pens looks good. Could you use the big hay feeder outside? (Do they have a place to pasture?)

 

[Texaslass]

Goatiegranny my idea right now is to do something like that; a few pens to make life easier, and whoever's left over so to speak can eat tethered.

Sadly we don't have pasture, but they have a good sized pen and all the hay they want, as well as alfalfa hay- and we bring them sweet potatoe vines and other things from the garden, so I think they're doing pretty well.
I'm sure we will still use the big hay feeder, just not in there, since it's really too big for our smallish barn. maybe I can get one of the guys around here to build a roof for it so it can be out in the yard.

 

[GoatieGranny]

Goatiegranny my idea right now is to do something like that; a few pens to make life easier, and whoever's left over so to speak can eat tethered.

Sadly we don't have pasture, but they have a good sized pen and all the hay they want, as well as alfalfa hay- and we bring them sweet potatoe vines and other things from the garden, so I think they're doing pretty well.
I'm sure we will still use the big hay feeder, just not in there, since it's really too big for our smallish barn. maybe I can get one of the guys around here to build a roof for it so it can be out in the yard.

It sounds like you have it covered. I'm sure they love all the yummy snacks you bring in to them. We grow sunflowers because they are pretty...and the goats LOVE every part of them. Easy to grow, too. We also go down to the local produce market and get all the free pumpkins we want from them after Oct. They throw them into the field to get rid of them, and said we could help ourselves. The goats adored them, and the pumpkins seeded themselves in our garden, so now we have our own growing! Such fun.

 

[Texaslass]

Anyone else have any ideas about the barn?

 

[happybleats]

We feed our does on the table. We have three milking tables. we bring in the milkers first to milk and feed, then the ones not in milk come in...this teaches them to come in and jump on the table., the young kids are fed in pans in the kids pen before we let them out for the day and when we put them to bed at night. it doesnt take long for them to learn the table mean feed...our boys are fed in feeders that hang on the fence..we put more than one so if anyone get kicked off the feeder there is a spare lol..This has worked best for us...We have one of those Work shop barn combo things..its a pain..not set up as a barn at all..but we make it work
figuring out what your needs are and making the structure you have work can be frustrating,..but looks like you have some good planning already started

 

[Texaslass]

Thanks for the input! I like the idea of feeding on the stand/milk table; we only have one right now, but maybe we can make another one or two, that could help a lot.
I'm excited about using pallets to build with; we can get broken ones for free right here in town, and intact for 75 cents, so it's a great source for wood. I made a hay feeder out of one yesterday and I can't wait to build some stalls soon as well.

 

[elchivito]

Thanks for the input! I like the idea of feeding on the stand/milk table; we only have one right now, but maybe we can make another one or two, that could help a lot.
I'm excited about using pallets to build with; we can get broken ones for free right here in town, and intact for 75 cents, so it's a great source for wood. I made a hay feeder out of one yesterday and I can't wait to build some stalls soon as well.

How about a shot of your pallet-built hay feeder? I bet others here'd appreciate it.

 

[Texaslass]

Sure, I'll try to get a pic later today.

 

[TDG-Farms]

Didnt read any replies but just by looking at your picture, Id suggest you get that feeder away from the wall so they can use both sides. The answer to just about any feeding problem with mean goats is space. The more they have the better. They will still run around and what have you. If it where me, Id move that feeder out of the barn. If you are in a real wet climate, then put a roof over it. Id then put extenders coming off the two sides so they are forced to walk around it to get to the other side of the feeder.

If you are just having problems with babies eating, build a creep feeder.

 

[Texaslass]

I am SO sorry it took me this long to get this pic!! We've just been super busy last few days, anyway here's a couple pics. It's extremely simple, I just got my bro. to take off the back boards so it could hold more hay. It tied with hay string at the top two corners and one of the bottom ones. It was pretty much staying in place because its resting on the "baseboard" if you will, at the bottom of the wall. We're going to put something over the side thats open so they can't jump in.

 

[Emzi00]

Nice feeder Sarah! :thumbup: