Turned my chicken roost into a goat stand *Pic Heavy*

[cyanne]

Some of you might remember my chicken 'litterbox' project that I put together for my little coop at the old house.

It worked great, but since we have moved it has not gotten a lot of use, now that the chickens all roost in the rafters of their new coop. And with the addition of my Nigi's I needed a milkstand a lot more than I needed to store an old chicken roost. So, out came the tools and the paint and here is what we ended up with:

The lovely model is one of my new Nigis, Piddlin Acres CB Ruby Slippers. She is a first freshener and still learning to put up with being milked so you can see from her expression how 'pleased' she is that the new stand works so well. Prior to finishing this, I had spent 3 memorable days trying to milk her tied to the fence. Ugh! Milking a nigi that way is awful because they are so small you HAVE to sit on the ground (yuck), and no matter how I tied her it was a crazy rodeo with her wiggling and bucking around all over the place. A real nightmare!

She still tries to be difficult, but things are definitely easier with the stand. Plus, the tall side pieces allow me to tie a rope to either side that I can slip under her belly to keep her from laying down while I milk.

 

[pipermark]

Thank you for posting this, I need to build something like it as well.

 

[lovemychix]

Cool ideas!

 

[cyanne]

The best part was that I spent hardly any money to build it! The most expensive thing I bought for this project was the $8 plastic floor runner that I put on the floor. Most of it was stuff I already had lying around, scrap wood, leftover paint, etc.

All I bought was:

Hooks and eyes: $1.94 for 3 of each type (only used 1 of each so I have extras)
4 inch hex bolt, washers, and nut: $.82
1 ft of chain: $ .48
2 1x4x8 boards: $5
4 ft of plastic floor runner/mat: $8

Total cost: $16.24!!!!

 

[Chirpy]

Very nice job - good use of the chicken roost wood.

It may not make a difference to you but two things I really like about my milk stands are:
1) The sides are open. No wood, at all, to get in my way - just a flat surface to stand on and the head stall. And,
2) The floor is only 12" on one and 15" inches wide on the other one. It's much easier for me to milk when I can be closer to my goat;leaning hurts my back. I actually like the 12" wide stand the best.

BUT... everyone sits a little differently when they milk so you need to do what works for you. Just saying this from personal experience for me.

Have tons of fun ... cute goatie!

 

[dixygirl]

Wow so gorgeous and white to boot! ...To match the milk

 

[dkluzier]

I'll have to get a pic of my nubians and my new coop. The goats think that the nest box is a great diving board or something, won't stay off of it.

 

[cyanne]

Quote:
Actually, if I had been building this from scratch, I would have built without the sides. But, since I was converting the chicken roost, I left the sides on. Turned out to be a lucky accident because the sides are plenty high enough that I can reach right in and they are not in the way at all, BUT the sides are perfect for tying a rope to prevent the goat from lying down.

All of my goats are new to the milking stand and the only one I currently have in milk is Ruby. She's not particularly fond of this new-fangled concept of people milking her, and when she realizes that she can't get her head loose she resorts to the typical goat protest of going all limp and lying down.

Kind of hard to milk her that way, so I tie a piece of rope to one side of the upright posts, run it under her belly, then tie it to the other side. She still tries to go limp, but instead of lying down she just ends up hanging there by her belly. After a while that gets kind of uncomfortable so she puts her feet back down to support her own weight again. Meanwhile I just keep right on milking either way.

 

[cyanne]

Quote:
Well, I had to paint it since it was kind of gross and stained with chicken poop after it's previous job, plus I don't have my barn put up yet so it needs to be able to withstand the weather for a little while.

As for the color, I just happened to have about a 1/2 gallon of KILLS primer lying around in the garage so I used what I had. Not sure if I will do a top coat in another color or keep it white. Most likely the top coat will be leftover paint from some other project so who knows what the final color will be.

 

[hobbyfarmer]

Very nice! The only thing better than a re-purposed piece of equipment is a re-purposed piece of equipment that looks even better the 2nd time around.