What Animals Fit in What Types of Barns?
It is hard to imagine spending that much money on one building that isn’t going to be your house…I get it. I have a huge heart for animals so I guess it doesn’t hit me as hard as it might others. Although, I don’t have the money to spend on something like this, so there lies my problem…besides the fact! Let’s talk about what barns are best for certain types of animals, because sometimes you are on a really tight budget and you need to just think practicality, not that perfect Pinterest barn.
First, there are many different types of barns.
You can usually make any barn work for any type of animals, it really depends on how you structure the inside.
The Monitor, English Gable, and Prairie or Gambrel I would say are the most popular types of barns and the most common you will see from the newer builds.
I, however, love the older style barns -the Tobacco Barn, Circular Barn, and Dutch Barn…You don’t see these very often, or when you do see them they are the old barns that look like one strong wind could blow them down.
I wish people would take better care of the older barns…but that’s just me.
Picture from sheafferconstruction.com
When you think of it, back in the day, farmers built barns more for storage than to house their animals. We baby our animals now and give them, sometimes, a better life than our own. Barns were used mainly for food drying and storage, dairy production, tractor storage, & hay and straw protection and storage.
The most popular horse barns you’ll see now a days is the Monitor Barn. This barn allows for stalls along the sides, a nice sized aisle through the center, and storage for hay, straw, and tack in the upstairs portion. This style also allows for more light to come in, not just from the sides or the doors, but from the windows in the top portion. Horses have become then most spoiled rotten animal, but also the most worked animal, in my opinion. They really could be kept outside and brought in just for bad weather, just like every other animal. We have since separated them out into their individual stalls, and kept them separate in pastures, etc. to keep them nice and neat for shows and riding. Depending on what you have horses for, you don’t always need separate stalls, you can keep them in one communal barn like other animals, I mean wild horses aren’t kept in separate stalls or pastures…
I personally love the look of this barn, and right now it’s the Pinterest perfect barn that you’ll see in pictures everywhere. It adds more of a modern look to the farm, with still being functional and having a roof that is practical, allowing water to slide right off.
For animals such as, alpacas, goats, sheep, donkeys, & cattle you don’t need a huge barn or a very tall one either. For these animals you’ll want to look more at the Tobacco Barn, English Gable Barn, or Bank Barn. These animals won’t be inside a lot and don’t need a ton of space when inside, because most of the time they will just be laying down or eating, if they are fed in the barn. Although, the size will always depend on how many of each animal you have and how many animals you keep together in one space. If you just have a few of these types of animals you can also get away with just having a bigger shed for their house. Also, when thinking about the inside of a barn, it will depend on what you keep these animals for, you might need separate stalls if you keep them for show. and you should have at least one separate stall for birthing.
These animals, just like most animals, would prefer more outside roaming space in their pastures than in a building. The building is just to keep them out of the weather and provide a sense of security, especially if they don’t have a protector animal with them.
Chickens, ducks, & pigs will be just fine with more of a shed. This will be a lot cheaper and you can build them yourself, a lot easier than you can build a whole barn. You can build these out of pallets or spare wood you find around the house. These animals really don’t need much space and would prefer more outside space more than anything.
For chickens, since they sleep and nest up off the ground they need more height than width when thinking about their chicken coop.
Roof Styles
Roof types on barns are all around pretty practical, because farmers back in the day, when designing theses, needed them to last for a very long time, and hopefully not get taken in a storm.
All of these roof lines allow for great water run off. They also allow for snow to not gather and get stuck and sit on the roof for a very long time, because this can wear your roof down.
We obviously have better weather proof materials that we use now a days to prevent weather corrosion from taking away our buildings, but they are also more expensive than how they built them back in the day.
A lot of barns now have metals roofs instead of the standard shingles or a plain wood roof. The painted metal roofing tends to last a lot longer than any other type of roofing.
