This website is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission.

How To Make A Goat Farming Shed

Last Updated: 02.11.24

 

We have discussed what a good goat shed should look like in one of our articles. Following up on that, this article will show you how to make such a shed by yourself. Although you can buy pre-made sheds, you may prefer building them yourself and ensuring that your goats have the space they need, designed by you. So here is how to do it.

 

Gather the materials

You don’t need too much to make a basic shed. You shall start with getting slabs, lumber, and plywood. Also, get your nail gun ready and find some solid metal posts. Depending on where you live, you can get slabs at very low prices, or even for free if you’re the type of person that works a lot with wood.

If you are lucky, you can have a sawmill near your house and that’s where you should take pieces of wood to be transformed into slabs. As a plus, the wood that you don’t use you can transform into firewood. Fortunately, making a goat farming shed is an activity that often requires little investment.

You can get your lumber for free if you live near a construction site, where you can ask for their unused lumber. But it’s better if you go and buy it yourself, as you will be able to choose the quality you need and the dimensions, too. And speaking about that, you will need some beams of 4×4 lumber and some of 2×4.

 

 

Create the frame

After you have these basic materials, you can already start your construction project. Begin with clearing the area where your goats are going to stay. Although some people might like that, you can’t keep goats too close to your house, as they will jump on every object they can jump onto, and by doing this they will damage as much of everything as possible.

So it’s best if you get them their own space, their own pasture. Make sure they have enough room to run around and also that they can’t jump over the fence or injure themselves. After you find the proper space for them and clear the ground, start building the shed.

The first thing to assemble is the base of the shed, and this part is made using 4×4 lumber. Using a saw, cut notches into both ends of the 4×4 beams and clean them with a chisel so they fit well. Make sure the corners are square and place the beams so that they form a rectangle. Nail the beams together where they meet using the nail gun and ensure they are well connected. The shed’s base needs to be a sturdy one.

After that, you will have to assemble the frame of the walls. You can use 2×4 lumber for them. Make the exterior frame similar to how you built the base, and again, be sure to have the corners square. Fill in the frame with other pieces of 2×4 and leave about 22 inches between those pieces. By doing this you make the wall a more durable one.

Pay attention when nailing the pieces of lumber together as you don’t want nails sticking out of the wood and injuring your goats. For your front wall, you should follow the same steps, but remember to leave a bigger opening for where the entry should be.

The frame of the roof will be made of pieces of 2×4 that run from the front to the back wall. Make notches on the bottom of these beams and place them on the top beams that form the front and back wall respectively. Again, nail them together with care.

 

Build the walls and the roof

When you have all the frames needed – the base, the front, back, and side walls, assemble them all together. Pay attention to how well they align and use your nail gun to attach everything. If you feel that the nails aren’t enough, you can use some big screws and you can additionally tie everything together using heavy-duty zip ties.

Use the metal posts to offer more structure to the shed. Place them at the corners of the shed and get them deep in the ground, so they offer as much stability as possible. You don’t want the wind to move your shed or worse, blow it away, so a good foundation based on metal posts is essential.

This is where the wood slabs come into use. You will use them to make the most of your walls. But if you don’t have them, you can also use plywood. Although less sturdy, plywood offers better insulation, as the wind doesn’t go through it.

 

 

Depending on the width of your shed, the slabs may be too short. If that’s the case, cut them into pieces that are large enough so they reach from a 2×4 to another. So if you left a space of 22 inches between the 2×4’s in your wall frame, that’s how long the slabs will have to be.

Place the slabs horizontally. This will make the structure more stable and provide some protection against the wind, too. For the roof, use plywood as the first layer. It’s easy to place and it doesn’t need to be so sturdy, just waterproof. Make sure to leave no gaps between the plywood sheets and leave about 3 inches of overhang on the sides and front.

Cover the plywood with tar paper and this will make the roof even more resistant to water. On top of that, add a layer of asphalt shingles to make the roof a proper one.

 

Final touches

You need to eliminate the holes between the pieces of wood or plywood that make your wall if you want your goats to stay cozy inside. If the walls are made of plywood, use wood putty or wood filler to fill the gaps between the pieces.

If you used slabs for your walls, there will be bigger holes between the pieces of wood so you will need to cover all the walls with something. A good choice is canvas tarp as it’s sturdy and wind-resistant. Place some straw on the bottom of the shed so your goats feel comfortable and don’t sit on the ground, and you’re done.

 

 

 

Leave a comment

1 Comments

Leonard Hindamu

November 24, 2019 at 12:25 pm

Very intresting

Reply
DMCA.com Protection Status