Goat milking shelter

The goat milking has moved from the back porch, to the yard, to the barn, but every spot had its own pros and cons. Finally we decided to make one more move.. put up some sort of shelter. The requirements were:

• Be enclosed to keep the birds out
• Allow for easy washing with a hose without making mud
• Be protected from rain and bad weather
• Provide running water to wash the milking equipment
• have some storage
• Be close to the barn where the goats are

So.. we set out today to produce such a spot.  The location we chose was at the end of the barn right outside the goat stall. There was a fairly flat spot that was originally a horse washing station. 

First we chose to have a soft, washable, easy to build floor that is raised enough to prevent water puddles. The solution was to use the same idea that I used for the hog feeding stand, and the poultry processing equipment floor. This is a simple floor produced from pallets covered with rubber stall mats. The mats are thick enough to provide stability on reasonably close slatted pallets. the pallets raise the floor a few inches and allow for water drainage. The resulting floor is washable, movable, clean, and inexpensive.  To build it all you do is roughly level a spot, align the pallets  to the area needed, touching each other, then arrange the rubber mats on top. It works best to allow the rubber mats to hang over hte pallet edges, and then to screw the rubber mat to the pallets. 

Final leveling by hand after using the tractor to rough it in. 

Once the floor was in, what we decided to use for the shelter itself is a  12x12 camping canopy. We picked one up for under $100 (in hindsight we should have spent more)  that allowed for closed side panels to be added.  The canopy pretty much just opens to full size by pulling it apart. Then you attach the cover with Velcro straps. This provided the roof and legs. Then you add the walls one at a time with more Velcro and snaps. 

For a washing station inside we choose a portable camping style fish cleaning table. It has a nice work area, a small sink, a faucet for connecting to the water hose, and a drainpipe. This makes a great area to wash up the milking equipment, hands, whatever else without making a mess in the mud. 

The fish cleaning table hooked up with running water and a drain.

When that was done we moved the milking stand (which has a sheet of hard plastic covering it for sanitation) into the new "room". 12x12 is a nice size room for milking one goat at a time.

Inside the completed "room"

Then of course we have to add the important milk inspector.. Everett in his portable play pen!

Everett inspecting his new area in the milking room

The "door" is a zipper panel on one side. It closes enough to keep the birds out. 

The completed milking station on the end of the barn,

I wasnt happy with the stability of the finished product. A good wind would blow the sides around and move the legs.  A better wind would pick this up and drop it in the pasture! Looks like it is time to improvise. What I ended up doing was cutting 4  2x4 that were 12 feet long so that they were just longer than the leg spacing. Then I notched out a slot large enough to slide the legs through. Placing these between the legs locked the legs in position and stretched the sides tight.  The slot is narrow enough so that the caps at the bottom of the legs wont slip through, which helps to anchor the legs a bit by the weight of hte 2x4. All in all, not a bad 2 hours of work.

When milking time comes.. we'll see how well it all works!