In which we upgrade goat living quarters to Goatenheim 2.0

Our goats are getting old.

More than 10 years ago, Madeline and I drove over to Eastern Washington to visit Gail and Mike, and to pick up two cute little goat kids that Ryan had procured for us.

Later that week, we set up Goatenheim, the realm of goats, which contained a little goat house and a small horse-resistant enclosure of their own.

Jennifer was driving over with a load of hay for us in 2009 and saw this in a neighbor's yard with a "FREE"
sign on it.  She heaved it up onto her truck, and it has been a goat-house ever since.

I recently fixed up the fence around their enclosure (due to Draconic "helpfulness")   but the only improvement to the goat-house itself in all this time is a new layer of shingles every-other year.

The little goat-house is certainly showing its age, and so, frankly, are the goats.  Goats normally live 10-12 years, although they can certainly live longer.  

(Patty assures us that our goats, who are really kind of jerks, will probably live forever.)

After 10 years, it was time to give Lupin and Dobby a space that was a little bigger, that could be bedded deeply and cleaned conveniently.

Which led us to...

Hana's stall.

Hana moved to Fish Creek Farm in 2012 (as a care-lease and eventual sale to Duana), and we've pretty much used her old stall for storing stuff since then.

The stall has been (among other things) a turkey house, a chicken broody house,
and a space to throw my bike to keep it out of the rain.  Lately, we've been storing
bedding pellets and weird junk.

I didn't have a lot of money to spend on this project, so we used a lot of stuff from around the farm.

This sign got abandoned at the top of our driveway in October.  I sent the county an email in November,
and they said they'd "be right out to get it."  It was still there yesterday, so we grabbed it.

Scrap wood:  always good for something

Jim put a piece of the scrap wood on each side of the doorway

We wanted to keep the door intact, in case we need it to be a door again on short notice

We needed to make a barrier that would stop (or slow down) Draconic Incursions, but one that wouldn't be an obstacle for Old Goats. 

The sign attaches to the scrap wood with zip ties, and
comes down low enough to block the Dragon (and hopefully, also some rain)

It is not bright orange on the outside.

After the door-ish barrier was up, we added a floor-ish layer.

rubber mats and pellets to make a deep bed

I don't want to clean up a 12'x12' goat stall, because goats are messy.  Besides, they don't need all that space, and I still need some storage!

A gate we no longer use that has been leaning up against a tree

We wedged the gate securely using 2x4's (more scrap wood!) and t-posts.

The goats were dubious, especially Dobbie. 

Why was I taking his food to a new place?  Why was I closing the paddock gate?  Why was Lupin going into the building where he never goes?  Aghhhhhhhh....

...oh hey, is that food?

Dobbie and Lupin in Goatenheim 2.0