Daydream Believer...Barn Plans.

I've been around a variety of barns my entire life: lesson barns for horses, barns that housed hens and equipment, small horse barns, large horse barns, multi-animal barns (chickens, pigs, and rabbits.) I know what works and what doesn't work. Of course, right now all I can do is plan and write and sketch, and so that's what I did today.

This would be my ideal barn, but I will also address common hazards in barns like this design below which is a design I've seen work in the past as a horse barn with alterations. This is absolutely not to scale since I quickly drew it on a standard Paint program.

Feel free to click for a larger view of this sketch. (c) Purity & Simplicity, 2014.

Okay so here we go....the design. Here are some basics of the design:

* The left side of the aisle are stalls: basic 14' x 14' stalls. I chose 14' x 14' over standard 10' x 10' or 12' x 12' because...why not? I would also like to make one wall/partition between two of the stalls removable. When one partition is removed, it creates a 14' x 14' stall and a 14' x 28' stall. In two stalls there will be horses. In one stall will be dairy goats. On the left side, there will be dutch doors leading to a fenced area. The goats won't use these doors. (See below).

* The center aisle will be wide enough to allow a tractor down the center in case of cleanups or animal removal (Heaven forbid.)

* The right side of the barn would be feed/hay/bedding (pine pellets - I'll tell you why in another post) with a door leading to an outdoor covered area for rabbit hutches and a rabbit area.

* Under the feed/hay/bedding will be a grooming/vetting/milking area with a center floor drain and a double dutch door out of the back. The double dutch door in the back will be used for ventilation, and there will be a river rock area that leads out to a pasture for the goats. This makes it easy for goats to come in the evenings, get milked, and moved directly across to a stall (or to an end or wherever since all three stalls are the same size.) Then in the mornings, stall, stanchion, outdoors. Also in this grooming area, a sink and shelf for medicine prep, and a faucet for a horse for bathing. Cross-ties also installed.

* Below the grooming/vetting/milking area is another room: a heated tack/fridge room where the electrical box as well as the main water shut off will be located...as well as a couch. There will be another door leading outside to a covered area for the hen house and "indoor" coop. Of course, the coop won't really be indoors, just covered, and used in cases of severe weather, etc. while also letting the hens forage and scratch.

Drainage is important to consider. For the stalls, there will be a French drain system employed, and the entire barn will be built on a hill allowing run-off, while also surrounded by drainage rock and French drain systems as well.

Some hazards:

Hay being stored in the barn where animals are housed. One of the main reasons why barns are engulfed quickly in flames due to a fire is because of hay and shavings in a barn. I've attempted to thwart this (if a fire should happen) by having doors to stalls on the interior of the building and exterior all on one side (across from the hay/shavings.) If the animals need to be released from the barn, a quick flip of the exterior doors will release them into a fenced pasture. The same goes for the hens - a quick flip of their door to the outside can be opened, and the rabbits can be removed from their hutches.

Each animal will have halters and lead ropes outside of their stall doors and emergency halters available inside the home.

I have also made the electric box on the opposite end from the hay storage, but.... hay can also be stored in a separate building altogether if need be. There will not be dried bedding, like shavings, in the barn. Instead, we will use pine pelleted bedding.

I also made the main water valve in the heated tack room area so that the pipes stay insulated during the Winter freezes.

As you can see from the very-amateur barn design, there is cross ventilation provided at either end of the barn as well as between the double dutch doors of the stalls and the door in the hay/feed area, the wash area, and the tack room.......all of which can be left open. The average size of the barn structure (excluding rabbit and hen area) is approximately, 42' x 42'.