Goat Pavilion

I started this project because I wanted to give the goats a little more room, put down some concrete to help keep their hooves worn down, and put up a shelter to keep their food dry. The first thing I did was dig out a small foundation and pour a concrete slab. Mixing bags by hand and pouring them one at a time isn't the fastest method. I included a drain, which is just a piece of plywood over a large buried flower pot and a drain plate cemented over a hole in the plywood.

Cement slab and base of cob wall

Since finishing the foundation, the whole thing has become an excuse for me to try and learn new building methods. I turned the roof into a living roof. I used 4x4 treated posts, 2x8's for the walls and a 2x4 frame. I put double 2x4's down the center and supported them on a cedar pole. The roof is lined w/ leftover plywood, which is kind of jigsaw puzzled together and reinforced at some of the gaps with more 2x4's. I lined the plywood with a sheet of pond liner, covered the liner w/ gravel, straw, and soil. There's a pvc pipe drain along the back. I was planning to run the drain into a rain barrel and use it for the goat's water. Not sure if I'll try that or not since I had a LOT of trouble w/ the rain barrel for the chickens. It's a trick making those things water tight when you have to have a spout at the base and can't reach the inside. Anyway, I planted wildflower seeds on the roof but they haven't sprouted at all so it's a soil roof right now.

Top of "living" roof

I decided to surround two sides of the cemented base with a cob wall and then run the wall up to the chicken coop. Unfortunately, I didn't read enough about setting up drainage for cob before I started building the wall. Part of the wall is sitting right on the concrete slab, which might be an issue. But I did dig out the other side of the wall, put in a rubble trench and lined it with brick. Still, I have about 2 feet of wall built now and the base is not drying. I will probably put a drain in front of it.

Since the wall runs along the south end of the chicken run, I wanted to put some openings to let light through. I made a few wattle frames with sticks and chicken wire to frame "chicken windows". I have them all cobbed in now and they are surprisingly solid.

Chicken Window

Chicken Windows and Chicken Run

The cobbing is taking a long time. I can put up one or two batches each day after work and about three each day on the weekend (any more and the wall isn't solid enough to work on). Two batches equates to roughly one inch of height on the entire wall. I can mix and put up a batch in about an hour. I haven't kept track of how long I've spent so far but at that pace, to make the wall four feet, which it needs to be to keep the goats contained, will take 96 hours. Then I have to put a roof on it and finish it. And this was just supposed to be practice so I didn't screw up the greenhouse!

Goat Pavilion