Barn Types

[rachels.haven]

We're going to be getting a barn built for my goat herd. It's going to have at least three large stalls and a milk room and will need to have a loft for hay storage (might consider ground storage). Price gap between post and beam and pole barn types is pretty big BUT in your opinion, if you were us which should we go for? Also, what kind of flooring is best in your opinion? Any other tips?

 

[Baymule]

My horse barn is a pole barn with a dirt floor. The feed and tack room is floored with 3/4" plywood. The sheep barn is just a roof off the side of a portable building, open on 3 sides.

Our climate difference leaves me unqualified to offer advice. While I deal with heat, you deal with cold that I have no experience with.

Well, here goes...... I love the post and beam, but this is not your forever home. Will it add value to your home in the amount that you spend? How long will you live there to enjoy this higher priced barn? Would post and beam appeal more than a pole barn to some snooty future buyer?

Flooring? Mine are dirt floors, but I am not milking goats or anything else for that matter. What are your choices? Concrete? That would be like a slab of ice in the winter, maybe you could put in radiant floor heating. Wood raised floor? You'd have to cover that with something pee-proof. Vinyl? I'm starting to like the post and beam idea with concrete floor with radiant heating.......

How popular is homesteading with goats, would you be building somebody's dream barn? Or would you have to come up with a secondary life for the barn as in converted to...... a wedding venue? Welding shop? Man cave?

 

[rachels.haven]

We're not sure if it will add value to the house. Tearing down the chicken house will for sure. We're moving to a mixed income town that is the last one before towns start to get rural, empty, and looking down on their luck(in this place I'm hoping for fewer rich, out of touch fruit loops who may be college educated but have forgot the 1st rule of college (you know nothing!)). DH described it as more blue collar. There are a few rich horse properties, and more (still overpriced because of what state it is and the current market) normal houses, and many run down ones. This house isn't a decadent looking house from the street, but it was own by a contractor guy the home inspector described as OCD (uh, in more colorful words) so it's very nice and kept up. It's a farmhouse, not a modern flowy open floor plan McMansion.
Because of the ambiguity I was going to approach the issue from a purely practical standpoint and build it for milking goats but with stalls big enough for horses (milk room could become a tack/feed room because here at least people like them plumbed and sealed off, we learned house hunting).

I wasn't sure about the differences between post and beam and pole. My current tiny post and beam barn does stay significantly warmer than the outside. It's concrete floored inside. The goats do not mind the temps, but the poo freezes to the floor making winter mucking very difficult until it thaws (THEN it's a dig out)...Now Baymule brings up the idea of heated floors...Oooo, now I have a new dream. Non frozen floors in the winter. The ability to shovel all year round and skip the end of February 6' of solid thawing manure party. I didn't think about that. That would be incredibly nice.

We were leaning towards a pole barn from a saving money standpoint, but post and beam are more common in this area and we can technically afford it (...but you don't have money by spending it, it's kind of nice to have a good sized buffer especially when you have health issues and/or kids in the family so hence the idea of a pole barn).

I guess bottom line is, spending money kind of stinks, and how in this situation is the best way to do it.

 

[Beekissed]

There's a third option that may work out to be more versatile in the long run and not run you as much money....

 

[rachels.haven]

Good point, I forgot about that kind. Thank you!

 

[Baymule]

Frozen floors in the winter? Frozen poop stuck to the frozen floor? Eeewww

I like my dirt floors. Just throw more waste hay, leaves, pine shavings or whatever down until I feel like digging it out or until I need it in the garden or on a pasture.

I didn’t know that about frozen floors. Yeah, absolutely go with radiant heat!

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Having had goats in NH I would suggest dirt foors for everywhere except your milk room...much easier to clean and you can have sand delivered when you need to refresh what you have removed during the winter mucking it out...that's my two cents worth of experience

 

[Alaskan]

I am happy with our dirt floor barn.

It is a pole barn.

Bottom is all open, big hole in first floor to reach the top floor hay loft.


Big sliding doors front and back so the truck can drive through. Big front sliding door also has a man door.

Only thing we did wrong is we didn't put a stout enough beam in to attach our winch. We would use a winch to pull up round bales.

Also... spouse wanted it "pretty" which means the roof and doors are lined up wrong.... as in the snow dumps right at the door.

I liked the open bottom floor (no stalls)... we made the first floor with quality head space for horses rearing. And even with the 4 pillars in the barn, the horses never pinned one another anywhere.

Worked out nicely.

The horses used it as a run-in. They had full access to outside, a small paddock.

The barn and paddock were only used in winter. The insulated water trough was in the barn.

When we switched to goats...

For goats the poles were helpful since we used the poles to section up the bottom level into 1/3 for a goat stall.

But horses and goats... dirt floor worked great.

I just used a milking stand to milk. The milk was for house consumption, ... eh...

 

[rachels.haven]

Yeah, my spouse wants it "pretty" too. I will probably give into him there (provided it's functional) because the worst that should happen is that he has us build a horse barn with a plumbed/insulated/heated room for milking. We are waiting for our moved out of house to sell and an extra paycheck in the bank before proceeding.

 

[Ridgetop]

MOVING?! Are we just hearing about this or have I lost your thread?

You had nothing but problems where you were before so moving out further will be mus=ch nicer for you and your family.

Whatever you decide to put up, make it TWICE AS BIG as you think you will need. Whether you need the extra space for animals or not, the additional room comes in very handy for lots of things. If your children decide to do 4-H they will want all sorts of animals for the junior auction. Large barns can be converted to workshops which are very popular when selling.

Dirt floors for livestock are the way to go. If you are worried about the cold when milking in the winter, enclose the milk room and it will stay appreciably warmer. Concrete floors for the tack and feed rooms make clean up easier. Loft space is great. Building the barn tall enough for a loft will not cost that much more in construction costs since there is still only one roof. Make enough room for a staircase to the loft instead of a ladder access. Don't forget to add water, electricity, and drainage.

So exciting!!!