Simple and Stylish Goat House Design With Building Plans!

Keep reading to see our small livestock barn, dwarf goat house, or goat pen. There are so many different ways to use this building and it has been such a great goat shelter for our mini pets.

Goats are on the brain these days in a bad way.  I guess you could say its because our doe Cali is due with babies any minute, any day, really any time!  She is taking her sweet little time, and its driving us all a bit bonkers.  But, I feel calm and prepared.  We have all the things we need, including our goat shed, which we built last year, but just finally got the finishing touches done.  Do you want to see a tour of this simple and stylish goat house?  Keep on scrolling!

Our small livestock barn now available with digital building plans!

Now, I feel like I need to go back to last year, at about this time when we were building our goat house.  It was an interesting time, and now looking back, I feel like I was unknowingly preparing our family for some uncertain times.   January of 2019, I suddenly decided that our family needed goats, and we needed chickens.  This was all a bit weird because I had never in my life desired to have either one!

We decided to jump on the goat train first, and started clearing the land and building a goat shed, or goat house for the cute little goats we would be getting.

I had settled on the adorable breed of Nigerian Dwarfs.  These goats are not only super cute and small, but they are supposed to have amazing milk, and I liked the idea that if we decided to, we could milk them and have a pretty good product.

My husband and I are always building and working on projects, and honestly, they are like anything else…they can test our patience for each other and teach us so much.

But, the project of building our goat house was probably one of the most pleasant projects we have ever done together.  Not only did it all come together quickly, we simply agreed on everything and got along!

This sometimes isn’t the case when you each have opinions!  Hahah!

With a simple project that started out small(I was only going to ask for a small shed/lean to that they could use for shelter.  My husband was the one that thought it needed to be bigger, and I was totally happy to agree. In the end I wanted this to be a small livestock barn where we could house multiple small breed goats comfortably.

Then came the design, and I really was trying to avoid any fights and told him we could keep it really simple.  And yet again, he was the one that suggested some of the amazing features of our goat shed, like the shake roof, the covered porch area, and the adorable cupola!

I always knew if I had a larger scale goat house, I wanted a dutch door.  Honestly, I love dutch doors and have used them in my chicken coop as well as our children’s treehouse!  Dutch doors are my obsession and are so functional in a farm building like this.

I really wanted one for the goat house.  In the summer, its a nice way to keep them locked up.  I can keep the top door open, which latches to the building so it doesn’t slam around.  I lock the bottom door to keep them in.  Its going to be great when the babies come.  

We dont often lock the goats up, because they enjoy laying outside, but right now with Cali, our doe ready to kid, we have nbeen locking them up.  

Lets talk about what we did inside.

We kept things really simple inside.  We left the top of the shed open so that they could get some nice airflow.  We didn’t paint anything.  It wasn’t needed.  But we recently added a separate pen in the back to keep Cali in when she has the babies.

She and my little wether goat Doug are the ultimate pair and love to be together, but with the babies coming we wanted to be cautious for a couple days.  But, we also wanted Cali and Doug to be able to be in contact and see each other.  So we created a partition with a metal fencing panel that we sandwiched between two sets of 2 by 4 studs.  

We dug a small hole to install the vertical piece and screwed it to the ceiling rafter.  Its nice and sturdy.  There are 2 by 4s on the top and bottom of the panel, which is secured to the side of the goat shed and the vertical piece.  Its so very sturdy, and its just what we needed.

We created a small gate, using the same method of sandwiching the panel inside the wood studs.  We used a grinder to cut the panel down to the size we needed.

We used a gate latch to secure it. And since my goats seem to be interested in figuring out how to open it, I have to insert a metal loop to keep my boy goat from pushing up the latch and opening it. We only lock her in here at night right now, just as a precaution in the event she has the babies while we are sleeping.

This goat shed has so much space in it, I love the way it turned out and they each have their safe space for right now.

We hung a pail of water on the wall, in the event that she has the babies, I don’t want them to accidentally fall into the water bowls.

The goat house is nice and warm with a good layer of straw and wood shavings.

Like with most of our outdoor projects, we like to reuse and repurpose in order to save as much money as possible. This is the reason why our projects aren’t always perfect, but they are full of character.  Besides its a goat house, and goats don’t need perfection. Our fence panel had been sitting in our “working junk pile” for quite some time. 

I hate to call it a junk pile, its more of a “items and equipment we might use later so we will keep it for a bit”. We always end up using it~

This goat shed design was quite simple. A square building, with a simple pitched roof.  My husband took it a step further by extending the roof to give a nice place for the goats to shelter in the shade and out of the rain if they decide to without having to go inside the goat house.

I am absolutely obsessed with the shake roof and his cupola is the icing on the cake!  The shakes match the shake roof on our treehouse.

So, from the front of the small livestock barn you can see the nice open beam covered area, with the dutch door.  As crazy as I am, I hung a metal bucket with some flowers, just high enough that the goats cannot reach.  They actually only tried to get the flowers on time, and must have realized they weren’t very tasty.

There’s no reason why I can’t have my pretty along with the function.  We are always trying to work between the two, with every project we do, especially on the farm.

We installed on of our favorite solar lights on the front of the beams.  This light is amazing!  I used them on my chicken coop as well.  They look so stylish and also automatically turn on at night and run a couple hours and turn off!  It makes going out to lock up our small livestock barn at night so much less scary! 

Also, its nice to not have to use my flashlight.  

I have found our small livestock barn to be a place I love to come and hang out.  There is something about sitting out in the field, enjoying the view, playing with the goats and just being present.

This girl is currently on baby watch, and we are so very excited, nervous and hopeful that all will go well.  This small livestock barn is the perfect place for her and her babies.

I like to think we spoil our animals a bit.  Its true, I know we do, and I am okay with that!  Theres nothing wrong with some goats with a stylish goat house, potted flowers fragrant in the air.  

I have always told my husband, if we have to use it, clean it, and maintain it, we might as well make it functional and stylish.  My brain just works better this way.

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