Goat Hay Rack

I presented Jeff with two hay rack plans: this one and one from the book Natural Goat Care. But they were just ideas to get Jeff’s creative juices flowing.

We figured we needed a hay rack, because otherwise the goats would eat their (expensive) alfalfa hay in a big bin in the center of the barn. Most of it would end up on the floor.

After Jeff thought awhile, he decided to part ways from the plans and do it his own way.

We had cattle panels along one wall of the barn anyway – the wall doesn’t go all the way to the ground yet. We ran out of time to build up the floor of the barn this season, so the cattle panels block the hole. We also would hook the goats up to this “wall” for their feeding stations.

Jeff put up another row of cattle panels and t-posts just inside the current wall of panels. A fence within a fence. He put plywood leaning from the bottom of the inner fence to the top of the outer fence. And we put the hay between the plywood and the inner fence. The goats reach through the cattle panel holes to get the hay. They can’t waste so much of it because the hay pretty much stays put.

Now we hook the goats up to the inner fence – just for their supplemental grain feeding, not when they’re eating free choice hay.

Hallelujah!