Build a Portable Goat Shed

Since I move my goat pen from location to location around the farm, I wanted to build a fairly light-weight shed that I could move along with the pen.  As with most of my projects I recycled a lot of the materials for this shed from stuff that I had lying around.  I did have to buy four treated 2 by 4’s eight feet long, but the rest of the materials are recycled.  I decided to make the shed four feet by four feet square and about four feet tall.  This is how I built the shed.

First I took my newly purchased 2 X 4’s along with a couple of recycled ones and ripped them in half so that the finished lumber was 1 ½” by 1 ¾” by eight feet long.

Then I cut and nailed together the two sides of the shed. 

The front of the shed is 4’ 6” tall and the back is 3’6” tall.  The base is 48” and the angled piece for the roof is 50” long.  The cross brace is 45”.  Note that the uprights are set in 1 ½” so that after the sides are joined together the shed will be 48” square.

Next I cut several pieces of lumber to join the two sides together.  The front and back pieces on the floor are 45” long.  The front to back brace on the floor is 45” long.  All three cross pieces on the roof are 45” long.  The cross brace on the back of the shed is 6’ long.  This will allow a foot to stick out on each side of the back.  These will be handles that make it possible to loft and carry the finished shed.

For the floor I used some old ¾” treated plywood that I had lying around.  The corners of the plywood have to be notched to fit around the uprights at the corners of the shed.

I wanted to make the shed so that I could keep the goats inside of it while transporting them, so I cut a piece out of an old stock panel to make a fence across the front of the shed.  This fence is four feet wide and three feet tall. 

I used two bent nails and two straight nails to make a simple closure system that the stock panel can be slipped into.

Recycled roofing metal was used to cover the three sides and the top of the shed.

The last thing I did was make a couple of brackets out of some old flat iron stock that I had in the shop.  I mounted the brackets on the front uprights of the shed so that I can slip a 2 X 4 into them and make a carrying handle on the front. 

 

The finished shed is light enough for two people to lift and carry, but because of the distance between the front and back handles it is much easier for four people to carry.  When we don’t have any help around, my wife and I just lift it up onto the kid’s old Radio Flyer wagon a roll it to where we want.