Ideas for hauling goats

[Dan Davis]

A little late, but built this for @$1800. Big expensive was power coating and bins.

 

[Jacobmettlen]

See if you can find an old stock rack in a weed row somewhere. Should be able to cut it down without to much work.

 

[joerotter]

I have a couple of goats a buddy gave me. They're good sized and about 2 years old, ready to work.

The issue I'm having is trying to figure out how to haul them into the backcountry. I have an F150 with the 5'7" bed.

I would prefer to not do a trailer for a couple different reasons. Have any of you guys hauled them in your pickup and how?

I've thought about a high rise canopy, building racks, etc. On a budget so I'm not going to go buy a marketed goat hauler for $2k+.

I dabbled with a full size pickup and a canopy topper, here are my thoughts: I love the idea, going trailer free. Faster driving on gravel roads, tougher trailheads, etc. Too many reasons to even list.

The problem for me is getting them all loaded was WAY harder than guys like Marc Warnke make it look. One goat goes in, one jumps out. Getting them loaded on a rainy dark night at a remote trailhead at the end of a long hunt, or even loading them up to go for training runs is a bitch IMO. If I were only going to ever run 2 goats you could do it, I would just run an "old man style" bubble canopy but loading and unloading them from a trailer where you can walk them in and tie them up is really easy. I typically run 4 goats so a trailer is really nice to have.

 

[Pilsner]

We toss several goats into the truck bed with a fiberglass topper. The problem is what to do with the saddles and pannier bags. Some of our goats are too big to do this with though so they get tossed into the horse trailer. Our biggest is 240#.

 

[24valve]

Typically I use a small, two-horse trailer that is set up for 4 goats (comfortably) with dedicated room for tack up front.

However, when roads or snow mean I can't take a trailer in, I've put them in a short bed pickup with a normal fiberglass topper without issue. Just make sure it's a crew cab with only two guys going, because a couple hunting packs and 4 goats worth of tack fills up the back seat real quick. Unfortunately I don't have any photos to share of the goats in the truck.

 

[Dos XX]

Mine are trained so that when I tuck my pants legs into my cowboy boots, they jump right in.