Hello everyone. so i want to know if anyone knows of a good affordable, FUNCTIONAL barn layouts for cattle. i would like to start breeding some nice angus but for now i am just showing. but i wanted to know if anyone has any good barn layouts. like stall areas, a wash wrack, MAYBE a clipping area, an area to possibly put a cool room, ect. just let me know if anyone has any good layouts. it does not need to contain everything above. just thinking out loud (lol)
barn layout
- Thread starter ska
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jconner2088
Well-known member
We dont always have babies in ours, we ai and doctor mommas through our barn as we so we built it to be able to handle 1100-1700lb cows. We have 6 10x 25 pens that are completly covered, end of the pens is a 10x 60 alley. gates at the back can open up and allow to shut things in the alley. That alley way leads to a s working alley that goes to working squeeze chute. In the frot of the pens is another alley but is 12x60 small walk through gates for each pen got walk calves out to the was rack , that alley leads to out lipping room wash rack and cool room.. Have a 12x 16 wash rack works for washing one calf at a time next to that is cool room that we built. Cool room is 15x30 nothing special but keeps em cool and keeps em in yhe dark. Clipping room has a built in chute with head gat and two side gates it babies wanna get crazy. Again its nothing special but it sure works for us. We did it so if someone had to work by them selves they would have no issue doing anything alone.
jconner2088
Well-known member
I also wanna say this.... SKA i dont know where you are from or how old you are, but i enjoy seeing you post on here, you ask questions and its a breath of fresh air because it sure was getting stale on this forum. So keep asking questions bud.
knabe
Well-known member
electricity and drainage.
don't skimp on the wire gauge to the barn or gounding at the load panel in the barn.
if you have option for 200 amp service, get it.
put a few 220 so you can weld, etc.
if you put service points up high, cattle can't get to them.
maybe put multiple places to hook panels to make stalls different sizes if you aren't going for permanent stalls. even then, my neighbor has moveable walls between stalls on a hinge and it takes a few seconds to make bigger stalls.
have barn on a high spot and have good drainage for your downspouts if any, far away.
also, if you ground your electric fence near your grounding rod for the load center, uh do it far away. it may send pulses through your electricity.
don't skimp on the wire gauge to the barn or gounding at the load panel in the barn.
if you have option for 200 amp service, get it.
put a few 220 so you can weld, etc.
if you put service points up high, cattle can't get to them.
maybe put multiple places to hook panels to make stalls different sizes if you aren't going for permanent stalls. even then, my neighbor has moveable walls between stalls on a hinge and it takes a few seconds to make bigger stalls.
have barn on a high spot and have good drainage for your downspouts if any, far away.
also, if you ground your electric fence near your grounding rod for the load center, uh do it far away. it may send pulses through your electricity.
Doc
Well-known member
I agree with Knabe 100%. I had been running my barn off a circuit from my house and a generator for years. 2 years ago I put in a separate meter with 200 amp service. Here in TN if you have a 2nd meter, then you get charged commercial rates which stinks but I have all the power I need now. Any place I thought I may want to run the double blower I made sure I just ran 2 outlets off of 2 separate breakers to that area. Also made sure that I had the enough for my fans running. Still have plenty of juice left. Like Knabe said, I ran 1 - 220V outlet near the front barn door so I can run a mig welder, although I have a welder that will run off of 110V or 220V. The 220V helps if you need to back up something heavier gauge to the barn door to weld.
As far as drainage goes. My cows are all watered off of city water. So on the front 2 corners of the barn the downspouts from the barn gutters run into water troughs. Then put gravel around the troughs to help with overflow. This time of the year, I don't have to do a lot of watering other than my runs. My backside gutters downspouts go into piping and are piped away from the barn.
Another biggie for me is natural airflow. The east side of my barn is open. That is where my calves are tied and goes into the runs also. TN weather allows me to get by with it. There is a few days in the winter that it gets uncomfortable, but not bad. I have sunshade material that comes down about 4' from the gable that blocks the morning sun. I'm thinking about adding outdoor curtains to that end that I can roll up in the summer and down in the winter.
As far as drainage goes. My cows are all watered off of city water. So on the front 2 corners of the barn the downspouts from the barn gutters run into water troughs. Then put gravel around the troughs to help with overflow. This time of the year, I don't have to do a lot of watering other than my runs. My backside gutters downspouts go into piping and are piped away from the barn.
Another biggie for me is natural airflow. The east side of my barn is open. That is where my calves are tied and goes into the runs also. TN weather allows me to get by with it. There is a few days in the winter that it gets uncomfortable, but not bad. I have sunshade material that comes down about 4' from the gable that blocks the morning sun. I'm thinking about adding outdoor curtains to that end that I can roll up in the summer and down in the winter.
Several years ago Brad Hook did some episodes of "Real Barns" on YouTube. Here is a link to his channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkEdLb8vpDFocNIBFwRkujw
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkEdLb8vpDFocNIBFwRkujw
knabe
Well-known member
Doc said:
solar payoff not reasonable to pay for difference?
my bill is only $100/mo which is pretty low for CA so to pay off solar, it's always been like 15-20 years and really, it would encourage me to switch to electric water heater, electric stove, not sure if there is electric hvac. also, i don't want solar on my house. shade areas would be ok, but you can't get good loans or tax breaks or companies to do it unless it's on the roof of your house because if they make a loan, they want it attached to the house for valuation purposes to eliminate theft, repurposing etc.
plus, at that point, i would want batteries and thats another 7-10k or more depending upon maintenance or maintenance free batteries.
really, solar only seems to pay off for people that have a bill of 200+ and really 400+ dollars per month.
solar for water pumps are going in a few places around here.
Doc
Well-known member
knabe said:
Not much solar around here. When we bought our house 25 years ago it had solar panels on the roof for a water heater. Worked really well. About 10 years later, water heater got a hole in it and pricing a heater was $2k+ and a 6 week lead time(at that time). Replaced with an electric heater. Everything in our house is electric. H20 heater, stove and HVAC ( a heat pump). I'm going to say our electric bill for the house ave $350/month over a year. The barn ave is probably $85/month. I should know this better, just finished taxes 3 weeks ago. I've got T8 fixtures in the barn. I would have done LED, but I had a customer replacing all of his T8's with LED and gave them all to me. So I saved some money that way. But there is a couple of months in the summer that basically the fans don't shut off in the barn and then turn that double blower on, well that electric bill climbs quickly.
My corporate office is in Carlsbad, CA and the entire roof is covered with solar panels. We have our corporate offices there along with our manufacturing plant.
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