How do you transport your goats when needed?
There are many ways to do this, of course. Most of the time, I like to use dog crates of various sizes. We generally put the crate into my Hyundai Santa Fe on top of a tarp that we then secure to the sides of the crate so that goat pee and poo are largely contained. In general, I help my buyers with transport only when I will travel up to four hours (making an 8-hour driving day, max). Most of those trips are made with young kids on board.
However, recently, I needed to take two adult does on an eight-hour trip one way. None of our crates would have contained them comfortably (or fit into my SUV, even). We do have a truck with a cap, but my back does not tolerate trips of this magnitude in that truck. What to do?
Ta da! The goat sling!
We made it out of 1″ PVC. The bar at the top rear is NOT cemented in. It is jammed in at the end, after we put in the goats.
The front and back sections *are* cemented together. The center, transverse pieces over the wheel wells are not cemented, but they are held in place with locking eye-hooks.
After we constructed the sling, we draped a tarp over it. In our case, the basic dimensions of the sling were 48″ wide by 60″ long, roughly. We bought an 8′ x 10′ tarp, and it worked perfectly.
We tied down the tarp in a few places with shock cords, but in truth, the whole sling is so close to the car sides that the tarp was held securely by friction.
Maiden Voyage
I had a two-day trip planned with this goat sling in place. On the outward leg (8+ hours) I took two adult does from WV to OH. The girls loved it. They could stand or lie down, eat, and move about as desired within the sling space.
On the way home, I had two 11-week-old kids (pictured). They were a buckling and a doeling. I was a bit nervous about them jumping the sling to the front seat, but neither tried it. I did have collars on them, and dog ties with me. At one point, the boy got bucky, so I did end up using the collar and tie to restrain him until he calmed down.
If I do another trip with young kids of different sexes, I think I will take along a collapsed dog crate and stick it behind my front seats, just to have that option to restrain/separate them if needed. It was a bit of a sticky wicket when the boy started to be bucky while I was in traffic. Otherwise, the sling was perfect, and I’m sure we’ll get a lot of use out of it in the next few years. It kept my SUV spotless of hay/poop/pee. Very pleased!