Baymule
Herd Master
Who knows what lurks in the mind of a goat?
Goat jumping fences
- Thread starter blessedfarmgirl
- Start date
- Thread starter
- #22
blessedfarmgirl
Loving the herd life
I FINALLY SAW MY GOAT GET OUT. And she's not jumping the cattle panels or the netting.
Time for a little explaining so I can show you how she's escaping. Our barn came with our property. It is an open pole barn with a dirt floor and it had been used for pigs. We leveled the rutted ground and tamped it down and used it for storage for awhile. Then before we got goats, I used pallets to fence in part of the barn. The pallets are about 48 inches high, and I put hog panel above that to prevent any jumping. I also built a hay area at the end of the goat pen with pallets to store the hay bales so the goats couldn't climb on and eat them. I made a makeshift gate for the hay area with a smaller pallet and some cord. We filled up the hay area, but as they ate more and more, the back wall of the barn where the hay was was left exposed. That back wall has a huge gap in it between the wood and the metal siding on the outside. I thought the gap wasn't a concern, since it was in the hay area and the goats don't go in the hay area. How wrong I was. All this time she's jumping the short hay gate (maybe 40 inches at the most) and squeezing through the gap! I came into the barn to fill up their waters after milking and hadn't tied her up. I was just in time to see her disappear through the gap and race outside to eat fallen leaves.
All this makes me realize that even though I'm trying to make things work on a budget I can't ignore gaps when I have goats. I'm going to be doing some fixing of both the hay gate and the barn wall. Hopefully this means my goat can go free in the pasture again.
Time for a little explaining so I can show you how she's escaping. Our barn came with our property. It is an open pole barn with a dirt floor and it had been used for pigs. We leveled the rutted ground and tamped it down and used it for storage for awhile. Then before we got goats, I used pallets to fence in part of the barn. The pallets are about 48 inches high, and I put hog panel above that to prevent any jumping. I also built a hay area at the end of the goat pen with pallets to store the hay bales so the goats couldn't climb on and eat them. I made a makeshift gate for the hay area with a smaller pallet and some cord. We filled up the hay area, but as they ate more and more, the back wall of the barn where the hay was was left exposed. That back wall has a huge gap in it between the wood and the metal siding on the outside. I thought the gap wasn't a concern, since it was in the hay area and the goats don't go in the hay area. How wrong I was. All this time she's jumping the short hay gate (maybe 40 inches at the most) and squeezing through the gap! I came into the barn to fill up their waters after milking and hadn't tied her up. I was just in time to see her disappear through the gap and race outside to eat fallen leaves.
All this makes me realize that even though I'm trying to make things work on a budget I can't ignore gaps when I have goats. I'm going to be doing some fixing of both the hay gate and the barn wall. Hopefully this means my goat can go free in the pasture again.
Baymule
Herd Master
Goats have 24-7, 365 days a year, they don’t take off for weekends or holidays, to plot against you.
SageHill
Herd Master
As they say in London “Mind the gap”
Mini Horses
Herd Master
So glad you found the escape!! I've sat in fields watching before. Eventually the minor "spot" is shown to me.
Ridgetop
Herd Master
Years ago we bought 2 small feeder piglets. We had a pen built for our chickens that was covered and fenced with heavy wire. We checked all the wire and it was sound with no holes or gaps. We put the piglets in it with a small hutch for shelter. They were fine for several weeks. One day they disappeared. After searching all afternoon, we figured they had gotten out and coyotes had taken them. When we went to feed and milk the dairy goats that night we got a shock - the piglets were inside their pen! The same thing happened the next day. This time I went in and checked the shelter, feeling in the straw bedding. No piglets. Milking time they were inside the pen again. This happened for several weeks until one evening they were laying outside the pen. This time I went over every inch of wire, pushing and pulling, and finally found back in a corner where the wire overlapped by about 12' that one piece would push far enough out to allow the small pigs to escape. Then the stiff wire would snap back into place showing no sign that they had gotten out. They would get back in the same way until all of a sudden they were too big to squeeze in!
