Is it kidding time for you? I’ve been seeing a lot of baby goat cuteness in my homestead groups. We have two Nigerian Dwarf does who I’d like to breed in a year or two, once our feral toddler calms down a bit. In the meantime, I’m enjoying everyone else’s goats, particularly my friend Scottie’s. She has a large herd of Nigerian Dwarf and Fainting goats, two smaller breeds of goats. The babies are the perfect snuggle size and absolutely adorable.
If you breed goats, you may temporarily find yourself with what Scottie calls “house goats.” Every year they have a boatload of babies on their farm. Usually there’s at least one with a bad mom or a mom who can’t keep up feeding triplets or quads. This year she has two house goats, a male and a female.
Typically they use disposable diapers for the goats to reduce the mess and cleanup, but she was complaining that the dog belly band that they bought just didn’t fit right.
So I whipped up two belly bands for her goats and, well, if you thought baby goats were cute, you should see baby goats in cloth diapers. I cannot handle it!
Today, I’m going to walk you through how to make your own belly bands if you have a house goat or two this spring. These belly bands are for pee only with boy goats. A regular diaper does the trick for the girls and for pellets. I’m still working on an all-in-one diaper for the boys, but it’s been tough, because he outgrew my first prototype before I could get it to them.
Supplies:
- polyurethane laminate fabric
- Hook & Loop (better known as Velcro)
- an old prefold diaper
Directions:
Step 1: Cut your fabric. I had one long piece for the exterior, then two smaller pieces for each end.
Step 2: Fold over the flat edge of each short piece and sew it down. This is an optional step because PUL doesn’t fray, but it gives it a neater edge.
Step 3: Sew your loop to one right side of the large piece. Sew your hook to one of the short pieces.
Tip: There’s a right and wrong side to fabric. The “right” side is the pretty side. The wrong side is the back side.
Step 4: Fold over the flaps on either side of the pattern. These will function as your elastic casings. Sew them down, making sure to backstitch at the beginning and end.
In the photo below, I’ve done the left side.
Step 5: Face each of your short pieces right sides together with the ends of the long pieces. Pin or use clips to hold them in place. Sew. Flip right sides out and top stitch.
Tip: PUL is a bit tricky to sew as it sticks when it’s run through the sewing machine. You can make it easier by using a serger or a walking foot on a sewing machine.
Step 5: The last thing you need to do is add your elastic. I cut a short piece of elastic for each side and attach a safety pin to one end. Use the safety pin to feed the elastic through the casing, sewing down the end without the safety pin once it’s even with the end of the casing.
Keep pulling your safety pin/elastic through the casing until you reach the other side. This is the tricky part- you need to eyeball the elastic length and pull it tight enough that it is a bit scrunchie, but not too tight. The elastic can be fairly loose in this, as you can see in the photo below. The yellow version was a bit tighter.
Once you get your elastic to your preferred tightness, sew it down, making sure not to hit the safety pin. Remove the safety pin.
I cut up a larger prefold into three pieces to fit inside the belly band. The prefold is what absorbs the urine. You can also use towels for absorbency or other types of linens.
Here’s a video of the process if you learn better that way!

Want to grab the pattern instead of sketching your own? Head over to DIYDanielle.com. It’s one of the freebies I offer my email subscribers! If you have a larger breed of goat, you’ll want to sketch your own pattern (or enlarge mine) based on your goat’s measurements. Thanks and happy kidding season!
Danielle Pientka is a stay-at-home mom to three boys and a blogger at DIYDanielle.com. When she’s not chasing children, goats, or ducks, she’s gardening, reading, sewing, or brainstorming her next DIY project. She is the author of How to Sew Cloth Diapers, as well as a few other sewing books. Her husband and she developed a sewing phone app, Sew Organized, available for iOS and Android devices. Connect with Danielle on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, and read all of her Mother Earth News posts here.
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