I'm basically a farmer at heart and not a computer technologist. If I screw up, please be patient. Laugh with me...not at me.

My name is Kat. For years, I ran a little farm with goats, sheep and chickens. However, we did have the odd pig and calf come visit for a while before they took up permanent residence in the "refrigerated barn".
I was well known for providing farm goods in my community. My customers often referred to as the egg or goat lady; depending on which product they bought or bartered for from me.
As a single mother of 3, I ran my farm as a way to put food on the table and subsidize my tiny monthly income. We enjoyed the benefits but nothing compared to our lifestyle on a farm.
A little over two years ago, a disastrous, brief relationship ended and I was left nearly penniless. I bartered/negotiated to hang on and nearly lost the farm a couple of times. While I managed to keep our home, the same could not be said for our lifestyle.
In the aftermath, I had only enough money for family groceries or livestock feed. I had to make the most difficult decision of my life and it meant giving up the essence of our lifestyle.
I arranged to ship our beloved dairy goat herd, sheep and flock of chickens to an animal rescue league. I will never forget those first few hours after they were all gone. The deafening silence on our farm made the atmosphere "heavy" with grief.
That evening, I instinctively went to the barn. As I stood inside the empty, "lifeless" structure, reality sunk in and hit me hard. At that precise moment, I realised for the first time in over 16 years there were no farm chores for me to do. The "IT" that had defined me and given me purpose, was gone. I sat down on a bale of hay and cried until I thought my heart would break.
Two weeks later, I returned to college and obtained my certification as a community mental health worker. Shortly after graduation, I began working in healthcare and life went on.
I believed that as time went by I would get over the loss of my lifestyle. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I took up puttering in my flower beds as a way to distract myself but I wanted more. Then I got a dozen chickens in an attempt to breathe life back into the farm but that only intensified my desire to farm again.
With each turn of the seasons, I became more restless to return to my roots. After several fruitless attempts to rebuild my farm, I felt frustrated and began taking a good hard look at the place. Overgrown grass, broom bushes becoming trees, huge patches of blackberries, rundown outbuildings, etc. After staring at these obvious signs of neglect, I felt very discouraged.
I began to consider giving up the farm and relocating to the city. Then I envisioned myself living in a concrete jungle inside one of those human rabbit hutches called a condo.

Well, that really went against my nature. I am not the type who easily cuts my losses and runs so I decided to take a different approach to the matter of bringing my farm back to life.

I began by shifting my focus to the positive factors and scaled down my dream to a more realistic size. I also accepted the fact that this was not a "one man" chore so I swallowed my pride and started looking around for help where it could be found.

Which brings me to this forum. Where else could I find so many barn "experts" in the same place! So here goes...

I want the barn to be 14' x 20' with earth floors and a simple slant or sloped roof. The lowest inside height will be 10'. It's going to have a single 6' x 6' door with 4 windows.

Now I know I can swing the hammer to build this barn. And some friends are going to help with the "grunt" work.

However, I'm terrible at figuring out the kind of materials I need to build it and even worse at the kind of math needed to estimate quantities. And just plain out forget about asking me to draw a layout unless it involves stickmen...lol

Does anyone have building plans for a barn similar to the one I want to build or know of an internet site that might show simple layouts with material lists? Any help would be appreciated and I open to all advice.

Thanks

Kat

The old barn had a lot of flaws. Too small and narrow, no windows, doors in the wrong places, etc. I didn't have much say in the construction and was never very pleased with the end result.

Although the old barn is a bit run down, it was worth a closer look. The hurricane last December did some external damage but structurally it seems to be fine. So I can definitely recycle a lot of the framing.

I figured if I was going to start over, I might as well do it right this time. My way...lol

You're right about the snowball effect! One thing lead to another and things are definitely starting to happen around here.

I decided to not "go it alone" this time so I wouldn't wear myself out and get frustrated so easily. Today, I hired a young guy to help me with a general clean up and brush clearing.

With the farm looking a little cleaner, I feel motivated to tackle that barn. I still wouldn't mind following some sort of layout though because I believe it will cut back on time and waste. So I'm still looking for some sort of blue prints or something like that.

By the way, I"m really open to any ideas folks might have about "easy yield projects" such as mushroom crops etc.

Thanks and take care.

Kat

The US Dept. of Ag has a variety of free downloadable barn plans,....

http://www.ebackroad.com/0mwpsorg-freefarmplans.html

That said, you will probably find that they are commercially oriented, but by pouring over them, you can figure out things like minimum space allotments for stalls and coops based on animal type.

You need to figure out some things before you "guess out" your barn.

Who and what you are going to keep there, how you will clean it, and finally once you have the size, how you will build it.

The "cheapest" way to build a barn depends on local traditions and local materials. Around here, it is ether a pole barn constructed from standing timber like a log home, or a driven post and beam barn, (18" posts consiting of local timber, bottom treated with wood preservative, buried 5 feet in post holes, sheathed with 2' wide locally sawn planks lag bolted to the posts.

For example, I have two barns, one for horses, one for "livestock", (really just peoples former pets and assorted characters living out their retirement in comfort). The horse barn in on the edge of a 1 acre corral, the livestock barn on the edge of a 10 acre fenced cross section.

Both barns have concrete foundations and concrete floors. Entrance, Passage, stall gates and stall size are set up so that I can clean out the waste and soiled bedding with the Skidsteer. There is a central channel leading to a 3" drain and slurry pond, and a 2" water line, so that the walls and concrete floor can be hosed down clean and sterilised.

For bedding, from the local Horse shop, I have gotten one inch thick 4 x 8 compressed rubber mats which line the stalls, overtop wood chips and straw are spread.

As a result, cleaning all the stalls in both barns, washing the walls and sterilising the barns are a one person, one day chore, ( including loading the waste in the compost bins). The barns get cleaned out quite regularly, every couple of weeks in summer, every week in winter.

You could use rammed earth or a floor instead of concrete, ( a 1:3 or 1:4 ratio of cement, rototilled into the dirt, dampened, leveled and compressed with a vibratory plate compactor).

The horse barn is 24 x 24 x 12 high, with a 16 foot loft for hay and feed storage. The walls are 2 x 6 studded on 24" centers, R22 insulated, (gets cold here), sheathed on the exterior with patterned OSB panels, primed and stained, sheathed on the inside with unpatterned OSB stained white. Stalls measure 8 x 8 with 4 x 4 picket sides and a 8' galvansied economy gate. There are 4 stalls on each side with a 8 foot central isle. The hay loft has an 8 x 8 trapdoor in the center providing access from inside the barn, and at the rear, a 6 x 6 door providing access from outside. Also in the hay lofts are a 6" x 8" Barn Owl entrance.

Entrance to the barn is through a 12 x 12 tack room, dressing room, where the horses can be groomed, examined, bridled and saddled and the gear can be stored on the walls leaving the floor space open. Each stall has one double pane 4 x 5 foot sash window, and the east wall of the tack room has the door, and two 2 x 4 windows. The south wall has 3 4 x 5 windows. Inside the barn, at the other end, is another sliding door providing rear access to the barn.

We currently have one colt, two riding horses and three dog food horses living with us.

The livestock barn is similar, except the stall sizes are different. 4 8 x8 stalls line one side, 8 4 x8 stalls line the other.

The cow gets an 8 x 8 stall, the two pigs share a 8 x 8 stall, 3 goats share one 8 x 8 stall, 2 other goats have individual stalls, 2 sheep share a 4 x 8 stall, with 4 sheep total in the barn, and the lamma has the last 8 x 8 stall.

Unless ill, injured or nasty weather, everybody spends the day outside in the fresh air, and gets called to the barn at sundown.

Pretty sad actually, clearing out beetle killed pine in a manly man way, chainsaw, axes and everything, followed around by a mangy pack of animals looking for affection, treats or just to hang around with me and the dogs. Sad thing is, the Belgan Shepard is nuts about fetch, and so is one of the pigs. I am working hard on getting them to take turns, as open competition is not fair to the pig, but then, I have been doing that for three years now to little success.

It was once said, "Ask and ye shall receive". No truer words were ever spoken!

How many ways can I say THANK YOU jaybc! The site you recommended is perfect. I checked out http://www.ebackroad.com/0mwpsorg-freefarmplans.html and found the answers to all my questions.

I downloaded 4 blueprints. The plans for the 16’ X 20’ milk house are actually the barn I have always dreamed of having because I'm a dairy goat farmer.

However, your barn plans that you so thoughtfully posted in detail are pretty darned tempting too. Now I have some wonderful choices to make!

Thanks for sharing a bit about yourself. I got a chuckle when you described your day because it sounds a lot like mine. I was reminded of a funny situation that happened to me one day.

I finished my chores early one beautiful spring morning when I decided to take a stroll to our little country store, a mile or so down the road. I set off down my long wooded driveway and got caught up with listening to the birds, enjoying the sun, etc., without a care in the world.

One of my neighbours was out in his yard so I waved hello. The fellow gave me an odd look and hesitantly waved back.

I made no mind of his strange response and continued on my way. As I went down the road, I got pretty much the same response from all of the folks I greeted.

By the time I reached the store, I was beginning to think that perhaps someone had been gossiping about me. It really bothered me so I decided there was no way I was going to be neighbourly to any of them on my way back home.

Then the lady in the store came outside as I approached and started to laugh in hysterics...AT ME! Now I was really put off by her rudeness and I let her know in no uncertain terms that I did not appreciate how people were treating me that morning.

She continued to laugh and simply told me to turn around. I did.

There was my 16 nanny goats, 29 kids, 14 sheep, 1/2 dozen chickens, the old goose and 50 lb male turkey (that became a pet instead of dinner) along with my very embarrassed looking herding dog; all casually strolling down the road right behind me!

At that moment, I realised that I had forgotten to close the farm gate!