Hi all,
We currently have a OLD (100+ year) barn on our property that needs at the very least a new roof and quite possibly some structural tweaking/recovering as the nice strait roof lines are no longer strait. The Barn is something like 40*70 (or a bit larger) and built out of oak. Seeing how this barn has not been used for YEARS and seems like it will cost quite a bit for us to fix up we are considering building a new barn. We also have a newer pole building for storage (of what every is needed, we could even park a Semi in it. So we do have more than
enough barn room on the property but we want to start having some animals on the property.
Property is a 11 acre site mostly pasture but with some treed area
We are trying to figure out what the best thing to do is:
- Do we rebuild the current barn
- Do we take down the current barn and use the
wood to build a new smaller barn.
At this time we are leaning towards the building a new barn that is smaller and has windows to allow sunlight into the barn. But being new
land owners (2 years) we don't have much money to build a spectacular barn. So what ideas do you all have on things to think about with a new barn.
Requirements
- Housing for
Chickens, Goats, and Pigs (possibly some other animals depending on what we get into)
- Goats - we do have a buck as well which means we need 2 pens/spaces for them
- room for milking
- Space for
feed storage
Some of my general thoughts
-Main barn that is 30X48 giving 8 10X12 pens/rooms
-10' roof on either long side (to give the animals more room to be outside but out of the snow/rain
- I would love to have a loft in the barn but at times I don't know if it is really viable (at least right away). In part for
hay storage (if I can find someone to cut my hay in small bales).
- really tempted to make the milking room/storage space a
greenhouse as well by putting up a clear wall/window around the roofed in
shelter and putting on a clear roof over that part so it would be a clear walled 10X10 wall with a 10X10 or so "inside" space.
-
water table can be a few inches below the surface (glaying occurs at 18 inches)
What thoughts do you all have about a barn? Any good sites to look at plans? Any thoughts on grants or sources of funding for a new farmer? Any other random thoughts that I
should keep in mind as I look into barn stuff?
