Made a pallet goat house, with straw insulation and a shower basin for the floor.
Well our baby goat Apple who was born five months ago has been a pain, jumping the fence and breaking the fence. So we decided it was time to separate her from her mama and tie her out.
Well over the past month or so I have been hauling and stock piling free pallets, yes I found some that are free! Normally people charge $10 or more of one. Anyways I was hauling them in my van, I can fix four heavy duty ones and seven light ones by the way. 😊
So let’s get this started.
Here are the materials I used that was either free or I already owned:
• Three heavy duty blue pallets
• One smaller Pepsi pallet
• A shower base for the floor
• 4x4 for the pitch in the roof
• Scrap plywood for the roof
• Scrap wood for bracing the middle of the roof under the plywood
• 2/3 hollow core doors
• Hammer and nails
• Drill and screws
• Scrap metal roofing
• A pry bar
• Skill saw
• Fleece: about a half yard
Here is what I payed for
• One bale of straw $15
I first recruited some help holding up the pallets until we could secure them in place with screws. With the under side facing in.
Once in place I started to attach the roof braces.
Then I put in the shower floor, it fit like a glove!
I then had to figure out siding. I had plastic, but her mama eats plastic. SMH 🤦♀️ So I was trying to figure out what I could use and be okay for a goat. I remembered I had some hollow core doors I got for free.
I was originally going to make the goat house out of those alone, but then I got the pallets.
What I did was pryed off the paneling, the front and back of the doors. Took out all the guts, measured and cut to fit the sides of the goat house.
Once I had the siding on the out side I needed to insulate the inside.
The gaps between the boards in the underside where large, and almost impossible to keep the straw in place.
So I had to pry extra boards off my stash of pallets to make pockets/support so the insulation didn’t just fall out when she started to eat the straw.
Once I figured out what boards to use, without cutting any, we secured them in place and stuffed the walls with straw.
After stuffing the walls, and lots of dust up the nose. I crawled out of the goat house.
Next was closing up the top of the doorway. I don’t want it to be compleatly closed off because of air flow.
I rough measured some boards and cut them with my skill saw.
After I had four measured and cut out, it was time to attach. I left a half inch from the top open above the first board and secured in place. Then for the next two boards I left half to a quarter inch space.
For the final board I used it for the goat door. I got the fleece and folded it into quarters. Held up the open end of the fabric, placed the fourth board over the open end of the fabric and secured it in place over the third lowest board. Sandwiching the fabric between the two boards, and screwing through the boards into the the fabric, then into the back board.
That’s it 😊
I almost used a whole bale of straw stuffing the walls.
I hope this keeps her warm, the shower floor should help keep the water away in the spring.
Proof of me sitting in the goat house after I finished stuffing the walls.
