Frugal Tuesday - A Solution for Daisy

So far Daisy has resisted all efforts to turn her into a good natured, easy to get along with goat. She has also proven to be a serious escape artist and even with a rope on will still jump fences. She also chews through rope or unhooks her chains and promptly starts mowing down plants she shouldn't. If she is on the inside of a fence she wants out and if outside she will jump in! What to do with her?

We have thrown around a lot of ideas. The one we like the best is to build her a type of goat tractor which can be moved to a new spot every day. She would have a little house and a totally enclosed area which could be moved via the quad easily. The only problem is... cost. Here we have a little goat that isn't even the breed we raise and we want to spend how much making her a special tractor because she is a bully with horns? Umm.... yeah... right....

Together Mountain Man and I sat down to think about this problem. As it happened we had a very old diesel tank sitting not to far away and within view during our discussion. Don't ask me why it was there. I think we were going to use it for another project a while back that got put on a back burner or didn't pan out. Anyway the more we looked at it the more we thought there must be a way we could turn it into a little movable house for her. Now this old tank hasn't been used in a very long time and while still smelling of diesel fuel it didn't take too many power washing's for the smell to go away. Although I must say when I ended up on the wrong end of the washer Mountain Man was in for it! Yes, even us old fogies can have a water fight!

Then the tank was hauled to the neighbors for some cutting and welding. A nice sized door was put in one end. A small window was cut and covered with a sturdy wire mesh. The hinges and latch were welded or bolted on. It may not be pretty but it is functional and will keep her safe at night.

We gave her a nice bed of straw and then set about finding something to hold her too it. Plain old rope doesn't work but Mountain Man found a length of airplane wire. Where doesn't he find this stuff? It seems like  every time we need something he finds it somewhere. We then bolted the wire to her double fastened collar. There! See if you can get out of that one! 

She has spent hours trying to undo the bolts and collar but so far so good. We then decided to move her to the end of the chicken run where she can see her friends the chickens but she can't jump the fence. This has a double purpose as her sharp little horns will hopefully keep the fox at bay should she decide to come back. Finally! I think we have a workable solution! Well... at least for now. 

Cost for this daisy of a solution? A few dollars for the wonderful neighbor who helped with the cutting.

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