New shed for the goats!
I have had my eye on this company, Palouse Ranches, for years now. They specialize in towable horse and small animal “run-ins” and shelters and stalls, all of which are built on a solid steel frame with rings for mobility. So basically they are built for rotation grazing.
With the inception of The Oasis project idea, moving the goats out of the paddock next to the house was Job One. Everything else hinges upon our ability to tear down the old make-shift goat shed, and that means moving the shaggy boys somewhere else. Luckily, when I checked Palouse Ranches’ website, they just happen to have the perfect goat shelter in stock. It’s about 5’ tall in the back and has the nice grated wall and sliding door. So they transported it up from Prosser, WA (near the Tri-Cities) and used their cool equipment to drag that puppy right into its place (at least for now) next to the chicken coop.
It is gorgeous! And we can use either the truck or (more likely) big red if/when we want to relocate it. Montana will set them up with a sleeping pallet, and they will be very happy inside. The chickens will also like having them close all day and night. A very cool Gadget-of-the-Day!
Tilt it… and then drag it!
You have to be very careful of your angle of entry on the gates. All of our gates are directly attached to corner fence posts (for added stability). So there are no gates in the middle of stretches of fences. That means you need to really line up straight before approaching the gate or a 12’ building will not make it through on the first try!
He uses his cool little forklift-style vehicle; we will use Big Red or the truck to do basically the same thing. Though whereas he is able to not just pull, but also PUSH/nudge when needed, all we will be able to do is pull and then pull again.
You can see the metal frame and rings that we will use to drag. This sucker is STURDY!
Shaggy Sammy is the first to check it out, of course.
Then he told two friends…
Absolutely perfect spot! Later this year Montana might want to move them to the field to the left, but before we can do that she needs to loop cattle panels around the trees for protection from the goats and electric fence along the edge for protection from the neighbor kids!
And the whole day, a light breeze slowly “snowed down” a good percentage of those gorgeous apple blossoms. It was a great show this year while it lasted.
