Category: Life With Goats

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A Better Manger

We have had a building hay crisis at Storybook Farm. We got a delivery of what looked like excellent hay in the fall, but as we’ve been going through it, about 1/5 of our square bales have molded! (We have a brand new barn with an excellent hay loft, so the hay had to have become damp somehow before it got here. Luckily, I buy locally, and the farmer who made it has 100 bales on reserve for me, so I have more on the way if we get a break in the weather. But I digress.

It was the combination of the concern about hay shortage and the crazy amount the the precious hay that I was sweeping up each morning as I muck our rubber-floored stall that made me decide, “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. There has to be a better manger that saves hay!”

We just couldn’t afford to throw out any more!

One of my biggest problems (besides waste) has been that, because we dam raise, little kids get into most mangers and do “the pee and poop dance” there. So, I was looking specifically for a solution for a group of mixed-aged does. I have kids that are 5+ weeks old, one that is 6 months old, three that are 9 months old, and then full-sized senior does—who range from small to large Mini-Nubians. Indeed, one of my does is almost the size of a standard Nubian.

These were my challenges going in, but I couldn’t be more pleased with the solution that I’ve found!

Fair warning: this manger solution is not for horned goats. That said, there are enough of us out there with disbudded goats that I think it’s worth the share. The above picture is the “before” shot. The picture at the right is the “after” shot.

I want to give a big shout out to the designers of this manger: creds to Thorcrest Farm in Canada for this outstanding design. From what I read, they’ve been tinkering with it for 25 years. They raise show-quality standard Nubians, but I followed their exact directions (using screws in case I needed to make adjustments) and so far, it’s working like a dream with Mini Nubians.

Some kind soul posted this picture of one of Thorcrest’s farm page posts, and the build was super easy. It took me (with a bit of help from Scott in a couple of places) about four hours to build from scrap wood found around our farm.

Below are pictures and videos (just hit the triangle even if there’s not a preview picture) of our does using the manger, and beside each one are comments that answer common questions that I’ve received on the Internet about this manger. Enjoy!

This video shows the step, which is about 5” deep. Skylark (at 5 weeks) can just balance on this step, but her tubby little body is too wide for her to turn to eat or to jump into the manger. YAY! Problem solved about kids playing in the manger!

She can, however, reach the manger from the floor. That opening is 2.5’ up from the floor, so she can’t just jump in. And, when the does eat it down to about half full, she can’t feed from it. But, since littles are still nursing and don’t need a lot of hay (and because they have their own hay in their creep pen, this feeder is just fine for her.

The picture (below right) shows does of three ages using the manger together. The doe at the right is a mid-sized, adult Mini Nubian, and can eat with all four feet on the floor. The doe in the middle is 6 months old, and easily reaches into the feeder. The doe on the right is six years old, quite pregnant, and is chowing down with her lips reaching to the bottom of the trough.

Note that the actual hay section of this manger is only 9” deep, so when feeding, throw in enough batts (flat) to fill only to the level of the lower edge of the opening. DON’T overfill it! If you do, they will “grab and go,” creating spills (also known as waste)!

I’ve been asked about the possibility of goats slipping on the step and hanging themselves. From my observations, this is highly unlikely. Small goats can get their heads out quickly, and larger goats can eat with all four feet on the floor if they are skimming the top layer of hay.

When a goat steps up on the step, she’s standing on four legs and perpendicular to the feeder. If she gets butted, she moves a bit, but has time to get her head out, and usually has one foot on the step even so.

Also someone asked if the does pull their heads out and waste hay that way. My answer is, “it depends.” MOST of the time, they leave their heads in and browse and munch. SOME of the does are nervous, and pull their heads out to look around. But, overall, there is SO MUCH LESS hay waste. I’m thrilled. THIS is the “after shot.” Below is the “before.”

Our plan is to build three more of these feeders for our goat space, replacing the feeders seen in this video. I think it’s clear why by now!

Final picture. Here I show that there’s a great space under this manger for kids to use as an away space. I sweep hay that does drop down to the floor (minimal) under the manger most days, and they can snuggle into it for a nap.

Note the end of the manger: we put a door on ours so that I can clean it out. With any manger, I’ve found, there’s a build up of tiny leaves and sticks that needs to be cleaned out from time to time. This little door makes that simple.

We also built a freestanding (therefore portable) version of this feeder. Details and more pictures are HERE.

And more recently, since we were running out of wall space for mangers, we began to convert our wall mounted ones to freestanding two sided ones, still with all the same great features. All we had to do was duplicate the side construction, and then put end boards on to stabilize it. We kept the cleanout door. It’s such a great feature.

This change now doubles the number of goats that can eat at one manger. Interior width is 32″: enough to lay two bats side by side down the length of the manger (which is six feet). To get an idea of how many goats this can serve, I include a picture from last week of them all crowding around to get at the hay we had just fed. This gives you an idea of why we needed to convert these mangers to give more linear feet.

Gallery of pictures below. it is the manger on the right in the first picture that was converted.

  • Overcrowding… but very little hay waste!
  • First manger converted. Double the space!
  • End view: door for cleanout
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Herdshares at Storybook Farm

It’s 2020, and for those of you who are local to Storybook Farm, it’s time to launch our herdsharing program! I am SO excited about this!!! If, after you read this article, you are interested in sharing our herd, please sign up for the monthly newsletter from the box below. (Most of this post is excerpted from this month’s Herdshare Group newsletter.)

What is a Herdshare?

In many states, West Virginia included, it is illegal to buy raw cow or goat milk. However, there is no law against a person drinking raw milk from his/her own dairy animal. 

But, what if you don’t farm, or can’t keep a cow or goat, but want all the wonderful health benefits of raw milk? WV law provides you an opportunity to purchase part ownership of a dairy animal, which then entitles you to consume milk from her. You, quite literally, are sharing the herd with the farmer and other raw milk lovers. At Storybook Farm, we raise only dairy goats, so we’ll talk about only goat milk for the rest of this discussion.

In a herdshare agreement one first pays a one-time fee per share of a goat. Each share makes you a part owner of the herd, and thus entitles you to a set amount of milk from your herd per week.

Because you now are part owner of one (or more) goat(s), you must also pay a farmer a monthly fee for boarding your goat(s), caring for the goat(s), and milking the goat(s).

The herdshare owner thus obtains (but does not purchase) the milk from his/her own herd. This arrangement is similar to arrangements of owning a share in a condominium (a timeshare), or to a CSA share for farm produce.

Additionally, some farmers also offer “value added” products, where they will turn your milk into cheeses or yogurt, for instance, for an added fee.

How Does it Work at Storybook Farm?

Farm herdshare agreements (which are legally binding contracts) vary from farm to farm. Here is how we intend to start our program for our first year at Storybook Farm.

First, the cost of a share in this first introductory year will be $25 per share. This is the cost of ownership of one share of the herd, and entitles the shareholder to 1/2 gallon of milk weekly and one truckload of manure, suitable for preparing garden beds each spring.

If you want to consume more than a 1/2 gallon per week (or get more manure — LOL), you can purchase two or more shares. We will have a total of 30 shares to offer in 2020.

The monthly board expense for the goat(s) per share will be $12.00. There are four weeks in the month, plus a few days. Some months are five week months. The board fee averages out to $2.50/week per share.

There will be modest start-up fees. The herdshare owner will need to purchase at least two (2) half-gallon mason jars (with lids) for distribution purposes. These will cost $3 apiece.

Storybook Farm will work out with each member of our herdshare how best to transfer the milk. Some will need to pick up at the farm; others can get delivery in/from Franklin, WV. Each week, herdshare owners must return a clean 1/2 gallon jar per share to the Farm for fulfillment of their milk allotment, unless they are receiving value-added products instead. (Obviously, since each shareholder owns two jars per share, you can return the empty jar(s) when you pick up each week’s milk.)

Storybook Farm will be offering Feta cheese, Chevre cheese, Mozerella cheese, and Greek-style yogurt as value-added products. Thus, if you wish to convert your weekly milk allotment to any of these products, you will add the cost of processing only. The end prices of these products will be similar to what is purchased in Franklin grocery stores from cow’s milk, but, of course, superior in terms of healthiness, freshness and taste!

Milk Comes with Babies!

Speaking of milk, we confirmed that 7 of our 9 adult does are pregnant! For those who are interested, our Breeding Plan and due dates are here: https://storybookfarmwv.com/breeding-plan/. Why not go there now and choose the doe of whom you’d like to purchase a share?

You may notice (on that page) that we’ve already kidded out Sparrow. Her kids (below) came on December 9 (making a busy month along with preparing for our family of 22 people for Christmas). Sparrow gave us three gorgeous doelings. You can read all about them here.

Sparrow’s three girls

Help Us Spread the Word!

If you are local to Storybook Farm (and/or Franklin, WV, where we’ll be making deliveries) you can join in! Please forward a link to this post to friends and family who would enjoy becoming joint herd owners.

In next month’s Herdshare Group’s newsletter, I will be detailing the many benefits of goat milk and giving a tour of our state-of-the-art milking facilities. I’ll also discuss ways that we will be making our milk as safe and sanitary as possible, including getting the herd tested for TB and Brucellosis in early March. Milk distribution will start in late March.

I plan to send an email to this group monthly, at the least. My goal is to inform you of events that are of interest to those who partner in our herd, or are considering doing so. In busy months where our herdsharing is in high gear (from late March through early September) we may be sending updates or information more frequently.

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Sparrow’s Kids

Those who follow this blog regularly will remember that we purchased Echo Hill’s Sparrow last July as a foundation doe of our new herd. (We had previously purchased Sparrow’s son, Rigel.) Two days before we were to pick her up, Rigel’s sire broke through electric fences to mate one last time with his lady love. (So romantic!) Bethany Bisherat gave me the option of canceling the sale, but I love Sparrow and Rigel was great, so I went through with the sale.

I couldn’t be happier that we made that choice! Sparrow is a beautiful, refined doe, who easily earned her milk star last year and, as Bethany put it last February, “turned into a Holstein”! Her udder is capacious and her teats are soft. She is a joy to milk. She is docile, sweet, and has proved to be the most attentive and patient of mothers.

The Kids Arrive

Of course, the icing on the cake is that she gave us three beautiful copies of herself to populate our new herd! We were amazed to be blessed with three doelings. The video below is of them only hours old. Mom is patiently still washing her new kids; Maggie (far right) is learning to scratch herself while standing up!

In keeping with our practice, we have thematic names that help us remember blood lines. Since Sparrow is a bird, her doelings needed to have bird names. First born was Chickadee, then came Skylark. We thought we were done. There was a significant time lag while we waited for the placenta–but lo! A third doeling, Magpie, was born. (Then, two placentas!)

I have since learned that a goat’s womb has two “horns.” Each can house multiple kids. It’s probable that Chickadee and Skylark were in one horn, and Magpie (Maggie in the barn) was alone in the other. This would explain why Chickadee and Skylark are smaller than Maggie, who is the longest and deepest of the sisters. Chickadee and Skylark have moonspots.

Meet Them One by One

This is Chickadee, hours old. She is mostly brown, with some white and many moonspots. I so love her ears and breed character! She was firstborn, and the smallest by quite a bit.

This is Skylark at 3 weeks old. She has a very pretty, feminine face, and is both deep and long.

At first glance, she’s hard to distinguish from her younger sister, Maggie. The way we most quickly tell is that the spot on her back is not connected to the brown on her side, she has moonspots, and there is no black on her legs.

Below is a gallery of Maggie shots. She is the third born and biggest of the three sisters. Viewed on her right side, she is hard to distinguish from Skylark, but from her left side, the brown markings form almost a map of North and South America!

After two weeks, a friend online pointed out that she was folding her ears back (bottom left). This is a fault if left unattended. Thus, we devised a “hat” for her to train her ears. It needs to stay on for about two weeks. Naturally, she loses it regularly! We then tape it back on. She’s really good about it; it’s mostly lost when she battles her sisters for a drink from Mom’s two teats.

  • Maggie’s right side
  • Maggie’s front
  • Maggie’s folded ears
  • Maggie’s corrective cap

Of course, the biggest joy of having baby goats is sharing them with our grandchildren!

  • Jonah and Chickadee
  • Emma with Maggie and Skylark

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Milk Stand Upgrades

When I first started with goats, I purchased two milk stands made of wood. They have served us well, but they bother me because, even though we wash them down with bleach and soapy water every day, they never look clean. I just know that dirt (and germs) are seeping into the wood, and while the milk never comes in contact with them, they still bother me, especially when seen in relief to our new milking parlor!

I decided to upgrade our milk room stands and use these two older ones elsewhere for things like clipping, hoof trims, the buck house, etc. In all, we’re making four new stands for the milk parlor.

The first thing I decided was that I wanted metal mesh stands, because I could hose them off, and the dirt would fall through them to the floor. Good luck! Each one costs $200+ (not counting shipping)! We weren’t going to pay that (no money left after barn building—LOL) so I thought of making a heavily painted white wood frame using the same basic design as our original ones, but getting a local welder to make metal floors that will fit onto the wood frames like shoe box lids. They are thus removable for cleaning.

I found a local welder who made them out of expanded steel, #9 (which means that the diamond-shaped holes are 3/4”), and raised (not flattened) for extra traction for the goats.

It cost me $60/stand to have these fabricated. Then, we built the wooden parts and tried the new floors on for size. They fit perfectly!

So far, so good!

However, in researching this approach, I discovered that the steel, left unpainted, would rust. 😢 So, of course I had to paint them.

This was not at all difficult using spray paint.

I used Rustoleum brand high-gloss white—again, working for that washability! I sprayed both sides of the metal floors.

After the floors of the stands were each spray painted with two coats, I took the wooden part of the first stand outside and used a brush to paint it.

It was more labor intensive than spraying, but the high gloss paint went on nice and thick with a brush—which was important to me for washability in the years to come.

That’s about it! I love how they look in our new milk room, and they are working just as I wanted them to: the dirt drops through them, and the raised expanded metal gives plenty of traction for my does as they jump up and down.

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Make a Kid-Warming Hut

This is a quick post to share the hut we made that’s been a blessing. I know there are those who are hard core and don’t turn on the heat lamp unless it’s, like, below zero outside, but I’m a softie and I sleep much better knowing littles have the choice to go in, especially during the first week or two of life.

Materials You’ll Need

  • A Prima Premier heat lamp (so your barn won’t burn down) and a 150 or 175 heat bulb
  • A plastic 50 gallon water barrel
  • A saber saw
  • Some baling twine
  • Some hay

How You Construct It

Start with the barrel. If yours is complete with top, start by cutting it out. (The barrel in this picture is upside down.) Notice that the original rim of this barrel is intact. Leave it this way for structural integrity.

On what was the bottom of the barrel (and is the top in this picture) get out your Premier heat lamp, take off the white grill, and draw around its rim. (While the grill is off, insert the bulb if you haven’t done so already.)

You’ll want to saw about a half inch inside the circle you draw, so that the lip of the lamp will rest on the barrel, and the white protective grill will set inside the barrel.

Finally cut the doorway for the kids to enter and exit. For Mini Nubians, ours is 12” tall and about 7” wide.

So, below is a picture of the kid warming hut assembled. It’s super easy. Use some baling twine to suspend the light from your barn rafters, as in the left picture below. We tie it up that way because we don’t want the barrel to ever get knocked over and let the light fall to the ground. I should NOT be supported solely by its cord, but we also tie up the cord so the goats aren’t tempted to nibble it.

Notice, too, that there’s a string of blue baling twine around the barrel (right picture above) to stabilize it further. It’s secured to an eye hook screwed into the wall behind, where we usually hang a water bucket.

Now, put some nice soft hay inside the barrel… a good 3” to 4” deep. (They will mash it down, and you don’t want them to get cold). You can pat it down some yourself in front to make sure it’s easy for them to get in and out.

The nursery stall, all ready for kidding! (See how to make the bunk here.)

And now, just for cuteness…

  • Three Sisters
  • Brother and Sister
New mom watching over her babies
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Goat Bunks and Pools

In an earlier post, I described the rubber flooring that we chose to put down in our new goat barn. We love, love, love this flooring for so many reasons (sanitation, easy to clean daily, etc.) but one problem we had for winter was that rubber on earth is cold. Almost all barn floors need some augmentation in winter for goats, so that they’ll stay warm and dry. We had a large area, and bedding is expensive, so we hit upon a compromise that is working great for us, and I decided this was the time to share.

Pictured at the right, you can see an assortment of $3 kiddie swimming pools that are 5’ in diameter, and two rectangular bunks in the far double bay. The one at the extreme end was just mucked last week. The one closer to the camera is getting too full and needs mucked soon. (It’s been about 9 weeks since I mucked it.)

These offer sleeping accommodations to 13 does. This post shows and tells how I make (and maintain) these pools and bunks.

Steps to Construction

Step 1: For a pool, buy a kiddie pool (they go on sale for a song in the fall, but they’re never expensive).

For a bunk, buy some untreated 2x6s. The bunk pictured here is 4’ X 4’. The ones in the picture above are 4’ X 10’.

You will also need one tarp per bunk that is oversized for the bunk size you want to create.

Step 2 for the bunk is to screw together your 2x6s to make a square. Then unwrap your tarp.

Step 3 for a bunk: Drape the tarp over the frame, and then wrap the excess around the frame. Make sure to push the tarp down so that you can fill it and the weight of the fill won’t break the tarp, or cause it to become unwrapped from the frame.

Step 4: (For either pool or bunk) put down a thin layer of equine horse bedding pellets. These are super absorbent. They will hold a lot of urine before it will start to puddle at all.

Step 5: Add some PDZ powder to your pellets. (Word to the wise: do all this with no goats watching. They think that the pellets and PDZ are feed!)

The purpose for the PDZ is to counteract ammonia odors (which are unhealthy for the animals to breathe) for as long as possible. I buy mine at Tractor Supply Co.

Now you are ready for the initial bedding layer. What you want to use is hay that is full of sticks—the kind you would’t buy for your goats. (Some people use straw.)

The idea is that you want urine to trickle down through it. I was able to buy large round bales locally for $35/bale, and a bale lasts over a month for all my bunks and pools combined.

When you put in your first layer of hay or straw, just make it about 3-5” thick; nowhere near the top edge of the bunk or pool.

The goats will lie in it, crushing it down, peeing and pooing. Each day, sprinkle just the lightest layer of loose hay (or straw) over the poo and pee stains. You really do not need much.

Again, the goats will come and lay on it, mashing it down. At first, the goats will stay dry because the loose layer of hay (or straw) will separate them from the horse pellet bedding that will absorb urine like a sponge. By the time the pellets are saturated, you’ll have been sprinkling new layers of hay for a week or more.

Benefits of Pools and Bunks

In case you haven’t recognized it yet, this process of bedding the bunks (or pools) is called “deep bedding.” There are a couple of major benefits to deep bedding.

First, in winter you don’t have to muck often. I dump the pools about every two weeks or so (and I could go longer, but they get heavy with congealed pee). I muck the bunks only every two months, and again, I could go longer but they get high and the goats start to stand on them to reach things I don’t want them to, so I empty them and start over.

Second, because the urine travels down through the loose hay and because I layer it each day, my does stay dry and clean, which in winter translates to warm and clean.

Third, the combination of pee, poo, and hay actually makes heat! Basically, these elements create a chemical reaction akin to composting. This adds to the animals’ overall comfort, and actually helps heat the barn overall.

Mucking the bunks is relatively easy. Let’s say that the bunk has gotten about 8”-10” high. I take a pitchfork to it on a relatively warm day, and can fork down about 8” before I hit the heavy, brown layer of congealed pee plus hay. Thus, I strip the entire bunk of the top 8” and then get some help to simply drag the tarp filled with the heavy stuff out the stall door. (In our case, we are spreading it nearby; if I was hauling it far, I’d use a wheelbarrow for the bottom layer, too.

If the day is nice enough, I spread the tarp in the sun to dry, and then finish the job later in the day. I sweep off all the dried bits of horse pellets, bring the tarp back to the bunk frame, and re-bed it as described above.

My goats love this system. Some choose to sleep in the bunks, and some choose individual pools. Occasionally, when scanning the barn late at night by barn cam, I see funny things like this picture.

This is Buttercup with her three almost-adult, 10-month old doelings, all snuggled up together in one 5’ kiddie pool!

Note that the girls do not pee and poo in just the pools or bunks. If you look at this picture closely, you can see that they also litter the rubber flooring. But, that’s a matter of 20 minutes’ work each morning to sweep up the berries, urine, and scattered hay with a broom into a muck bucket. Easy peasy, and I love how fresh smelling everything stays.

I am thinking that in summer I’ll be taking out all the pools and bunks and allowing them to either sleep inside or outside on ground with scattered hay. They won’t need the warmth then, and it’ll be less work for me.

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Mineral Dish Victory!

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make daily life a joy or a hassle. For quite awhile now, one aspect of goat herding that had me stumped and frustrated was how to dispense minerals and baking soda. Goats need daily supplies of these two essential elements, but keeping their containers clean, free from moisture, and available to the goats without contamination was a bridge to far for me for months. Now, I finally have two solutions that are working for me, so I thought I’d share.

First, I may not have picked the best container for dispensing minerals and baking soda, but this one (I got it at Tractor Supply) was what I had. (I have seen people use PVC pipes, but I’ve tried those with chicken feed and they were a PAIN to clean, plus the feed got moist and caked. So, I went with these for minerals/baking soda.)

This container comes with three holes for screws so, being new to goats, I promptly screwed it to the wall and filled it full of minerals on one side and baking soda on the other.

Then the problems began. First of all, if you’re new to goats, please know that goats LOVE to put their feet on things mounted to the walls. Sometimes they use them as a leg up to jump out of their stalls. Sometimes, they just want to see over the stall edge, so they plant their feet on whatever they can, or hang them over the edge of the stall. These mineral dishes are perfect for such goaty antics. As you can imagine, it only takes one goat using the dish with its feet to soil the whole stock of minerals/baking soda! 🙄

If they don’t stand in these dishes, then they poop in them! I have found little “love gifts” in these dishes time and again! Then, there are the flying goats, like my Meda. She is small and agile, and LOVES to simply launch herself into the air and come to a perfect pose on top of ANY protrusion, of ANY depth. I am amazed at where she can jump and how she can balance! And, of course, one of her favorite perches became these mineral dishes.

Finally (and this is true with all mineral feeders) there is the problem of moisture building up in the minerals/baking soda. This moisture can actually host coccidia! These feeders, screwed to the wall, are really hard to clean properly! You can’t dump them; you have to scoop stuff out. You can’t spray them with the hose. I got some Clorox wipes and tried to empty and wipe them down periodically during the humid summer months, but it was always a pain to do and never yielded satisfactory results.

Frustrated, I asked around on goat groups, and someone suggested that I put a topper board (or canopy) on over it, as in this picture.

I thought this was a terrific idea!

It HAS solved some of my problems. Once I put these on, the goats no longer poop in the dish. They also don’t stand on it to try to see over the stall wall.

On the other hand, this mineral canopy hasn’t slowed Meda down.

Every morning, she rockets around the stall and launches herself onto it, does a little tap dance, and then leaps into the stall, rockets around, and leaps back on top of it again.

She’s amazing. She moves so fast that my camera’s shudder speed can’t keep up with her!

So, while the wooden canopies did help, they actually made it harder to clean! I ended up buying duplicate feeders and nested one in the other so I could pick out the top one, clean it, and then put it back. That was okay, but gee—buying two for each place I needed them seemed excessive.

Then, recently, we built stalls in our new prefab buck shed, and I think I have finally solved this problem! If you’re read my previous post on the buck stalls, you’ll know that I have two of these mineral dishes in each stall, in case I want to divide it.

Pictured at the top of this post (and on the left below) is one of the new stalls from its outside. Pictured on the right below is the same stall from the inside. See those mineral dishes? They are not attached to the solid wall! Look closely at the left picture. You see those squares below the open, slatted walls? Those are the removable boards onto which the mineral dishes pictured on the right are screwed!

  • Stall from outside
  • Stall from inside

The feeders are attached to a piece of plywood, that then inserts into slots. From the OUTSIDE of the stall, I can grab the handle on that plywood, lift the plywood out of its slots, and thus remove these dishes to dump them, clean them with a hose, refill them—all the things!—and then put them back!

So far, the bucks don’t stand on them. If they start to do so, I’ll put on a canopy as above. But for now, I just am reveling in the ability to remove, refill, and clean these dishes.

As I said at the start of this post: it’s the LITTLE things that can get to you day after day. I’m glad I have one less little thing niggling me now! 😍

Below are more shots of this setup, just in case you want to duplicate it.

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The Bucks Stop Here

To complete our momentous year of building out our farm, we tore down our sixty-year-old shed and imported a pre-fab building to place on its foundation. This post shares the details of the new Buck House, inside and out!

This is the old shed. It was here in pretty much this same condition when we bought the property in 2011 (eight and a half years before this post). The roof leaked, the wood was rotted through, and it was ugly. We called it the Lesser Eyesore –because it sat next to a building in similar shape and three times its size, called (naturally enough) the Greater Eyesore.

In mid-October, Charlie came and knocked it down in about two hours with his excavator.

After Charlie finished, we were left with a cement foundation which, though not perfectly square or plumb, was good enough to support a new building.

Our bucks had been staying in this shed until recently. So, there was plenty of leftover bedding to remove from the foundation.

We had Jonathan come in with his ‘dozer and scoop dirt out from behind the foundation so that water would drain away from it instead of into it.

Then we examined it and figured out how to get the new building on it. Finally, on November 4, here came the building (late) at dusk.

In this shot, you see the back of the building. It has two dutch doors on either side, and one man door offset in the middle.

We had to set the building in the dark, but when we awoke the next morning, there it was, next to the Greater Eyesore (which is soon to be torn down as well).

Though the foundation was 40′ long, we elected to only replace it with a 30′ building. It is 12′ wide, just as the old one was.

We seeded around it, re-attached the steps up to the front door, and began to go to work on the interior.

The building was only a shell when it came. Our friend Kenny implemented my design for the interior. He did a great job. Let me explain to you what you’re looking at in the next shots.

We currently are at capacity for bucks. We have two pairs: a younger set and an older set. They will be rotated through as our herd becomes saturated with their genes.

The buck house is designed to house four bucks, either in pairs or singly, depending on their ages and health needs. Above is pictured the floor plan; at the right is a picture of the left side as you face the buck house.

Stall Features

Each of the end stalls are 9′ x 12′. Each cozily houses two full grown Mini Nubian bucks each. The bucks go in and out of the dutch door at the back of the building.

In between these stalls, inside, is the human area that we call “the Lobby.” This 12′ x 14′ area is where we keep feed, minerals, mucking equipment, tools, meds, a milk stand for hoof trimming or restraining a buck, and hay. Daily, I can feed, give minerals/baking soda, and hay without entering the stalls at all. To give water, I open one of the doors inwards, and it becomes a shield of sorts between me and the animal within as I give water. This is very handy for when the boys are in rut!

These two end stalls each have a central manger, flanked by two mineral dish inserts (lower) and panels above for viewing (we can see in; they can see out). Then, on either side, there are doors that open in.

If desired, because of fighting or health issues, or unequal sizes of animals, we want to divide them further, we can split the above stalls from front to back down the middle of the manger, creating two separate stalls on each end: four in all. The split stall pictured on the up top would let the buck on the right directly into the field, but the buck on the left would need to come through the Lobby and out into his field.

Thus, this house gives us 2-4 stalls, depending on our needs. We have no power out in this shed, so I purchased some rechargeable, batter operated, LED closet lights that are motion activated for winter feeding in dark hours. So far, we are loving this new Buck House!

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New Barn is Done!

Part 2: Cheese Room and Milking Parlor

As I explained in more detail in Part 1, the ground floor is divided exactly in half. 18′ x 48′ is dedicated to space for the goats. As I explained in a previous post, that space is modular: there are four stall doors to the outside (as you see in the picture above) and four stall doors on the interior ally. We divide the goat stall space using goat/sheep panels that can easily be installed or removed.

18′ x 48′ of goat stall space

On the right of the picture above, you can see mangers built between the doors. If you look closely, you can also see white-painted steel roofing material mounted on the wall. That same steel roofing shows in the picture on the left. It sheathes the milking parlor and cheese making room. These take up about a quarter of the entire barn’s downstairs space.

Cheese Making Room

If you enter that door pictured above, you will be in the cheese making room. It is quite small: 12′ x 8′. It is a one-person space that opens into the milking parlor as well. It is designed as a clean, heated space where one may make cheeses and store goat’s milk.

We will work clockwise around the cheese room, noting features.

First, the door to the barn’s interior has glass so people can watch cheese being made if they stop by, and so that we can communicate easily. The cabinets and counters were found at Lowe’s. The stove was bought off Craig’s List for $50. And the crates that we use here and in the milk parlor were bought on sale for $6 each, delivered free, from Michael’s.

Continuing around, you see the door opened to the milking parlor beyond. Note the door from the milking parlor to the outside (for orientation later). Also note the floor: it is luxury vinyl (not because goats need luxury, but because it is waterproof and has a commercial durability rating. It looks like wood, too, which means it is textured. It’s easy to sweep and wash, which we do twice daily after milking. It is in both the milking parlor and the cheese making room.

Now, if you close that door to the milking parlor above, you see the sink area. The view out the window is of the mountains–so beautiful!

I designed lots of space for keeping oversized pots and pans below in this area, and again, crates replace upper cabinets.

Now, I have pivoted again. You see the jar of milk, and the door we came in by, and I am standing in the milking parlor door.

You can see an empty space where we place our cheese presses, our current small refrigerator (we are looking for a full sized one on Craig’s List now), and our upright freezer that was a Craig’s List find.

Notice the small stool down low on the left…

We love our 8 barn cats, all of whom are feral, and were born in our barns. They are great mousers! But, we have had two problems since acquiring goats. Problem 1) They were always in our old milking parlor–startling or annoying goats while milking and making things unsanitary. Problem 2) When it is zero degrees outside, I am too softhearted to leave them to the elements, so I bring them inside to my bathroom. They make a MESS of it, since they’re not trained to the litter box.

For these two reasons, it was important to me when designing this barn, to solve these problems. The milk room backs up to the staircase, so I decided to create a “cat lair” under the stairs. I had the most interior, low portion partitioned off, and created a cat flap exit into the barn from that space for them to use.

Inside my nice, clean cheese room, next to that stool and near the floor, is the cat feeding flap.

This flap, when opened reveals the cats’ food/water dish that slides out into the room. This way, if we want to give the cats some milk or whey, we can, without them entering this clean space or bothering the goats while milking.

Above the cat flap is the room’s heater, and above that (not pictured) is a switch on the wall that solves the second of my two cat problems: what to do when it’s really cold out. The switch operates and outlet inside the cat lair. I plug a heating pad into it–the kind that doesn’t have an automatic shutoff that we use in our chicken house for MHP brooders–and when it’s cold, we can flip the switch and the pad will be on for cats to pile onto and stay warm. (I will sleep soundly knowing my cats are comfy.)

Milking Parlor

Our milking parlor is designed with cleanliness in mind first and foremost. It is sealed off from the barn and the outside, and insulated top, bottom, and sides. Up in the corner at the end on the right in this picture, you can see a shop heater that keeps the room above freezing.

We have room for four milk stands and two milking machines in this room. We are currently transitioning to from wooden stands that you see pictured here to wood/metal stands that we are making.

Other features to note: we again use crates (painted white so we can see when to clean them, and so that dirt can’t sink into them as readily). The room is (obviously) lined with metal roofing painted white. This is a highly durable finish that we can wipe clean with a rag, and that the goats cannot damage.

Also note the door to the outside. There’s a door to the left (like the cheese room one), which is where the goats enter. They are milked, and exit to the yard (under a roofed overhang) when they are done.

In the foreground of the picture above, note that there is a feed bucket on the right and a black shelf unit on the left. (You’ll see them again in the next picture, where I move to the opposite angle.)

Okay, so now you see the bookshelf units. This is where I get to store all my animal medications that I’ve always had to store in the house in winters (a LONG walk from the animals).

You now also see on the right the door to the interior barn ally where the goats enter this room, and that’s the door back into the cheese room on the left.

Just a few more features to note and then I’m done. The PVC pipe that you see comes through the ceiling of the milking parlor. This is because we store our grain in a caged, mouse resistant (is anything mouse proof???) room. After we mix it up there, rather than carrying it down, we position the grain can under this chute, and pour it down, saving lots of effort.

The grain cans are on rolling plant stands, so during milking, we move them closer to the feed dishes on the goats’ stands.

We are loving the relative peace and cleanliness of our new milking parlor. Our next post will be about how we are upgrading our milk stands to be easier to clean and more sanitary. If you’d like to become part of the Storybook Farm community and receive monthly newsletters, sign up below!

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Goat Math

We are entering our final months of our first year with goats, and I have learned SO MUCH. From nutrition to illnesses to FAMACHA scores, to birthing our first kids, to teaching newcomer goats that, yes, they really can safely go out into our big scary pastures–it’s all been a trip! But in a good way.

Looking back, it’s kind of funny how we grew. I’ve been keeping chickens for years, and because they’re so easy to hatch, house, and raise, we’ve ended up each year with more than we intended! People often call it “chicken math.” You say you’ll have a small flock of four birds “just for eggs” and then end up with way more–and having to explain to your husband how this all came to be.

With goats, though, things were gonna be different. I planned to start small: two does in milk. See how it goes. But… I found (and this is fair warning for newbies!) that goat math is like chicken math. So here’s how it went for us…

After reading a lot about goat conformation and the best blood lines available in the Mini Nubian world, I found my first two does in milk early last (offered in response to a post in a Mini Nubian goat breeders’ group) in November. Mimzie and Twyla were both pregnant in MI (10 hours away from me), and I agreed to get them after they kidded in the late spring. One was due in late April and the other in the first week of May. All fine and dandy. I was happy to wait until warmer weather.

The plan was to milk these two through the fall of this year, and then breed them for kids to be born in the spring of 2020. This would give us a nice easy ramp up into goat keeping, to make sure we liked it and could keep up with an every-day, twice-a-day milking schedule. For breeding we had heard that people often do “driveway breeding” — where you take your doe in heat to a neighbor and they “do it” in the driveway, then you take your doe home. Seemed like a great idea to me!

But THEN, I got an offer that I just couldn’t refuse to buy a nice, pregnant doe due in April. Buttercup was only four hours away. Yay! But, you might already know that you shouldn’t move pregnant does in the last six weeks of their gestation, because they can abort from stress. Yeah; so now I was getting goats in mid-February 2019, not late spring. Hmmm.

In the end, snagging Buttercup was one of the best ever decisions, because Buttercup’s seller was a big-hearted lady who has mentored me and become a dear friend over the last year of goat keeping. I don’t know what I would have done without Jen Crawford! Also (spoiler alert) Buttercup gave birth to three doelings on April 2, so that was like winning the lottery!

The decision to buy Buttercup led to the need for her to have a companion in mid-February. (Goats are herd animals and should absolutely never be kept solo.) Those Michigan does weren’t ready to come for months. So, I found a nearby farm with great quality “new blood” lines, and contracted to purchase a small, somewhat wild, doeling by the name of Milky Way (Milcah, for short). Just after I agreed to buy her, in January, she came into heat and her owner bred her. So, now I was getting two pregnant does in February, and two does in milk in late spring. Milcah was due in early June. And she did deliver (spoiler alert) doe/buck twins, right on time.

At this point, I found out that “driveway breeding” has become somewhat a thing of the past, due to bio security concerns. Plus, those who invest in really nice bucks understandably don’t share them for a song. SO, we decided that since we were all in, we might as well buy a buckling from the premier breeding barn in the country, Green Gables Mini Nubians (in WI).

The logic here is that, if you’re going to breed goats, genetically speaking, your buck is half your herd, since a single buck can become the father of all the kids on your farm in a given year. But many people don’t want to keep a buck around for 10 months, so they look for inexpensive ones to breed and then move on, one way or another. So, generally, backyard-bred bucklings don’t sell for much. Some are wethered (castrated) and sold as pets, but many head off to the auction block as meat. Sad, but true.

In top goat bloodlines, however, young doelings and bucklings sell for the same price. Again, the reasoning is that the buckling can grow up to service all the ladies, whereas if you buy an expensive girl, she’ll just be one in the herd of girls. So, we decided to invest the highest dollars in a Green Gables buckling, and as God would have it, we were first in line to choose our boy, Asher!

Then, of course, you can’t keep boys and girls together (because a buckling can breed a doeling as early as 12 weeks old!). So, we had to plan to keep him separate. We could have chosen to keep a wethered boy, but there’s no gain in that for us (you feed, house, and vet a wether, but can’t breed him. So, I bought another high-priced, blue-eyed buckling (Rigel), also from outstanding bloodlines, to keep him company. So now we had six goats contracted or bought. And (as it turned out) five on the way in utero.

And then my husband saw how little of a dent our two does (that were eating in our pastures by mid-March) made in our 35 acres, so I got to buy a few more does. Hurlburt Farms was having to downsize, and sold me Claire and Dorothy — along with Pete, a mature buck, who is polled. The does were Green Gables lines, so dovetailed well with my existing herd. All told, we ended up purchasing three bucks (and birthing one) and nine does (and birthing four). So, that’s goat math for ya!

  • BFFs forever
  • Finley’s Gem Texas Pete

And now I’ll act like your mother and say, “Do as I say, don’t do as I do.” Unless your husband is a amazing as mine is, you really do want to start slow: just look for a doe in milk, or a pregnant doe, and start small! You’ll be less crazy than I was that way!

It’s been challenging and fun at the same time to try to figure out which does are in heat, and which bucks will improve features of which does. (This is for me, who has three bucks to choose from, and 12 does of various ages. If you’re going to be doing a mini farm you won’t have so many options.)

How did you go about gathering your herd? Have you fallen pray to goat math??? Comment and let me know, or continue the conversation via email. Just sign up using the form below. Until then, blessings on you and your farming endeavors.

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