Sand floor in goat shed/barn?

[Penske]

We are thinking about getting some pet wethers. Has anyone used sand for the flooring? Then, pallets and straw for bedding. We have lots of sand living on an island and I thought it would drain well.

Thanks for your help!

 

[helmstead]

As long as you bed it deeply and try to keep them from eating off the floor (ie ingesting sand) it should be fine!

 

[Skyesrocket]

I never used sand, but it sounds reasonable enough to me. It might even help to keep their hooves trimmed.
Cleaning the pen will be like cleaning a huge cat box...lol...but not as smelly.
My goats like sleeping on their pallets. I think those are a good idea.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Sand works fine.
Put down a layer of pelletized lime before putting down the straw, and it will help neutralize ammonia odors

 

[Penske]

Thank you!

So maybe where they sleep/loaf use sand/lime/straw. Then maybe under the manger/storage/and milking area (if we do that later), concrete?

 

[spook]

In free stalls with Dairy cows, we used sand with lime used several times of year. This allowed great drainage of urine and also prevented a lot of the problems of mastitis by not allowing the liquids from reinfecting another cow, not allowing bacteria to grow and the lime kept it bacteria free.
Of course with the cows we buried rimless tires to help prevent them from digging out the stalls and giving them a bit of spring action.
As for eating the sand, the girls ate out of a microchipped grain feeder and also a cement feed bunk. Don't know how that would work with goats, but it helped our girls a lot.
Good luck!

 

[MissPrissy]

Not sure what you mean by drain well but you will still have alot of cleaning to do no matter what material you use. LOL

The little poop balls will have to be raked and/or shoveled out all the time. For myself I would much rather use a pitch fork and toss old straw bedding out than to have to shovel and rake the sand and pitch fork out the straw. They don't care where they poop. They are just as likely poop in their bedding as they are to poop over in the sand.

Something I do in warm weather to save me hours of cleaning and shoveling out barns is I open the goat house every evening and feed them. They are free to come and go as they please all night long. When the warm morning rolls around I lock them out of the barn. It saves me more than half the cleaning and the expense of bedding.

I would also suggest finding a clean place removed from your goat barn to milk. You'll be using water to wash udders and keep other equipment clean. Inside your goat barn this will promote rot and mold in anything that gets damp. In the warm months I have my stanchion outside and milk in the fresh open air. It helps keep the milk from getting tainted. Smells in the air will readily transfer to your milk while milking. That's one reason people keep bucks as far away as possible from the milking area.

Good luck with your goats. You are sure to enjoy them.

 

[Penske]

Thank you Miss Prissy!

For draining, I meant the urine would drain through (we have very sandy soil), keeping them dry. I do plan to use a pallet with a deep bed of straw on top for bedding area. What do you so with the straw you muck out? My DH says that it will not compost?
How do you keep smell down for neighbors? We have 5 acres.

Thanks!

 

[MissPrissy]

Why would it not compost? Rotting vegetation is how you get composted materials.

You put it in a pile, keep it damp, turn over every once in a while, the heat builds up and before you know it you have perfectly fine compost for your gardening pleasure. That's what we do with ours.

 

[Penske]

Thank you. My feeling was the same. He just said that straw wouldn't and I've never tried...perhaps he's conspiring against getting goats...HA!