The Wild Rush to Prepare for Goats

The last few weeks have been a little crazy. We had an opportunity to get three young goats that we could not pass up… but it was a little earlier than we had initially been thinking. In other words, we had to do a lot of preparation in just a short amount of time.

We had an old lean to that we wanted to turn into the goat barn, but two sides of it were surrounded by a fallen down barn. So we cleared the barn. There were poles heavier and larger than telephone poles in there. We know that because there was a telephone pole in there. We found a lot of scrap metal, and a lot of glass. We spent hours just picking glass and raking up the ground after we had spent days clearing the wood from the barn.

Then we began working on our fence. Fenceposts every eight feet translated to roughly twenty holes to be dug two feet deep. We have very rocky soil. Even with the auger, it took us a full day to dig all of the holes. The next day, we put the fence posts in and attached the temporary fence across the back (we are planning on expanding the fence in that direction, which means I get to dig more holes!!!) Then we took a roll of our permanent goat fence and hoisted it down the line of posts, ratcheting it to a nearby tree to make sure the whole thing was taut. The fence was finally done!!!

But the barn was not done, and the amount of time until we were picking up the goats was evaporating. We got all of the rough cut lumber we needed for board and batten walls on the two openings of the lean to, and we started building walls.

As we put the boards up, it was really cool to see the finished product starting to come together.
We still want to build a couple of stalls and a loft to put hay in, but the barn is up now (the goats actually watched us as we finished).

It still seems surreal to think that we have goats, but I can walk up there right now and see the three of them prancing about (they are quite entertaining to watch).

They are much more friendly than I imagined they would be, and they have adjusted to their new home quite well.

They love people, so if you are ever in the area, feel free to stop by, and we will take you to the goat barn to visit with them.