# What type of floor in goat barn?



## goatgang (Jun 19, 2005)

First let me thank everyone for all the advice. I have been reading for months. I had some difficulty posting recently

We got our first goats in May - 2 pygmy kids- a doe & wether. ( wether finally became a wether - the banding was on for 5 1/2 weeks! horrible, never again. ). We are still working on the goat barn . We are in Michigan so need to finish before the weather turns cold again. The goat barn used to be a block piggery. Tore off the old roof, worked on the blocks, now we are working on the floor. My husband is trying to build a Taj Mahal floor. The old floor was cement and some dirt ( old groundhog problem). He has laid tar paper, heavy black plastic, a beam framework, and marine plywood for decking. It is beautiful platform - but what do I put on the plywood? Paint or polyurethane ? The goats have a smooth , raised , level floor , but what do I do to protect it?


Thanks to everyone
Chris

P.S
We will be looking for another pygmy goat kid next spring. Prefer a doe , needs to be born after January 1, 2006 ( 4 H project - showmanship).


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## james dilley (Mar 21, 2004)

With A wooden floor I hope you love RATS because thats what you will get. A concrete floor, With A footer below the frost line is A must. If the footer is not at least 24" Rats can dig under..


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## Cat (Jun 19, 2004)

Why not have a dirt floor?


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

wood floor will also rot out quickly. We have wooden floor in our shed, but we covered ours with the epoxy garage floor covering, and it works great
sorry your wether had to go through that, but it usually doesnt take that long, and is pretty much painless after a short while. it was either this or cutting him open! hope this doesnt mean that youre not going to fix male pet goats anymore.....
anyways good luck with them!!
~Dona


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## goatgang (Jun 19, 2005)

A dirt floor would have been okay. I would have to remove the old cement floor. The floor is mostly intact - just not level due to settling & old ground hog problem. Demolition of the floor would probably be another set of issues. 
Thank you for the suggestion of the epoxy floor covering. 

I would still fix a male pet goat. I was a total novice - my receipt said he was fixed. Didn't realize the seller had put a rubber band on him the day before I brought him home. (We had originally planned to purchase 2 does. ) 


Chris


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## caberjim (Feb 19, 2004)

I put a wood floor in ours. Dirt turned to mud way too quickly due to rain and a high water table. Concrete was cost-prohibitive. I had 800 feet of old fence boards, so that has become the floor. The goats seem to prefer the wood to the dirt. I sweep it out every morning and scrape it weekely to make sure there is no poop buildup. Epoxy sounds like a very good idea. I will have to look into that.


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## Caprice Acres (Mar 6, 2005)

if you breed your does, and kids are born in spring or any chilly months, then concrete floors are a bad idea. if a kid is born on cold concrete it will chill and die. if your doe goes into labor in the morning when you go to work, you will have a very sad site awaiting you when you get home. 
epoxy works great. try to get the edges well, too. the price of the epoxy is worth the work of replacing the wood flooring in two years or so. it also keeps the goats from chewing on the floor, because now it doesnt smell edible! alot easier to clean, too, a nice smooth surface. you need to put two coats, however, on wood, because wood is more porous than cement and a lot of the first coat will soak in to the wood.


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## TnChickenFarmer (Oct 9, 2005)

for over a hundred years..dirt works great :goodjob:


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