How To Make Dairy Goat Barns?

Your dairy goats need barns, especially during excessive cold and wet weather. Even little dairy goat barns also help your goats to keep them happy and healthy during adverse weather conditions.

Barns have another advantages for dairy goats. It will make the milking process of your dairy goats much easier. That means you will be able to milk your goats easily.

How to Make Dairy Goat Barns

Barns are also a very suitable place for providing your goats veterinary treatment, if any goat of your herd is injured. Here we are describing the process of making small dairy goat barns.

Shelter

Usually goats don’t require amenities inside their barns. But it will be better, if you manage some sort of solid shelter for them. Ensure your goat barns have a roof that doesn’t leak and have solid walls.

Try to make the barn on high ground, so that it doesn’t flood during excessive rains (it will ensure, your dairy goats are not standing in mud when it rains). The barn must have to be sturdy enough, so that it can’t pose any problems.

Hire a contractor to build your barn, if you don’t have enough construction knowledge and skills for building a safe and sturdy building for your dairy goats.

If you can’t place the posts correctly in the ground or secure the walls and roof on the structure perfectly, then your animals could be injured seriously and even killed.

So it’s very important to learn more about the barn construction. Otherwise, hire an expert.

Design

As we have said previously, dairy goats don’t require too much. You can make very simple dairy goat barns. You can make a simple barn with three sides and a roof, or four sides with roof and an entry.

In case of three sided barn, try to keep the open side south faced. This will prevent cold wind, and helps to keep your animal warm.

Goats usually don’t mind if you keep them together within an enclosed space. So you can include stalls in the barn or not.

Size

It’s not a good idea to keep your goats inside an overcrowded room. So the barn must have to be large enough to accommodate all your goats perfectly, with a reasonable amount of room space.

The actual size of your barn depends on the dairy goat’s size and their number. If you don’t have any idea about how much space is required per goat, then measure the length of the largest goat of your herd. And plan on the goat having at least a foot of space on it’s four side.

While measuring, ensure that ‘the goat is able to lay down and turn around easily within the barn’.

Make the roof of the barn tall enough, so that your goats can stand comfortably. And they can stay under the roof without risk of hitting their head.

Other Features

Good ventilation system is a must. Adding electricity, cooling fans, heaters will provide your goats extra comforts. Although these are not must. Keep a secure area at any corner or side of your barn for making a storage of feed and hay.

It will be better, if you keep separate room for feeding, playing and milking. You have to build a few large stalls for keeping the does and kids separated from each other (especially during birthing and when the kids are particularly young).

Because you are raising dairy goats, and you can’t allow the kids to their moms nursing for all the time. Also keep the breeding cows separated from the herd.