Micro-Farm Barn Layout - Preliminary

Okay, a bit of modification done and clarification as to what area represents what.

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The Green Doors are a set of 2' doors
The Blue Doors are a single 2' door

Haven't figured out the pop doors or any of the other doors yet. About to go cross eyed looking at this, lol

Edit to add:

The "run" area's are "outside" the barn.

That's pretty efficient looking. Are there doors or entrances into any of the other pens other than the one noted in green and blue?

Is there storage above? Is there electric? Running water? I empathize with your going cross-eyed designing this -- it looks like you've put considerable thought into it. When will you start building?

Jenny

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Jenny,

I'm planning on putting double 2' doors on the coops and the goat pen. Just haven't decided yet where to put them. (They will be the green ones) The rabbit pen will get a single 2' door. (again, haven't decided where to put it yet.)

I've decided against the storage above because of the simple fact that my body is getting older and I don't like the prospect of having to climb a ladder to get to things, lol. I'll probably add a lean-to type shed at the goat/rabbit end of the barn for hay storage.

Once I determine where the rest of the doors are going to be on the coops and pens along the sides, I'll be putting shelving along the rest of the area. Maybe not all of it but who knows. As was already mentioned to me, I probably don't have enough storage.

As far as electric, yus yus yus! Can't do without it in a place that big. Will have a light in each coop & pen as well as along the "walk-way" in the center and all storage areas. Even if some of them are only little battery operated puck lights (such as for storage cabinets).

There will be water to the barn as well, to make watering easier. I've decided that all feeding and watering will be done in the runs, so as to keep the coops a bit cleaner and dryer. I'm sure my DH will come up with a good solution to making sure the waterers stay full at all times. He's pretty handy with things like that! Not to mention in the goat area off the pen, I'd like to have a small sink, since I'll be doing milking etc, there.

This particular draw up is still open for changes, since it's just a preliminary. Tonight I've been working on the "details" inside the space and have managed to get ONE coop designed and finished, lol ... but the next day or so will be the last opportunity I have to work on this at home, as I have to go back to work on Thursday (truck driver) and won't have time on the road to do any more to it.

As far as when this is going to be "started" ... alot depends on how soon we can get our back acre partially cleared of trees and undergrowth, since that's where it's going to be. Time is something it's going to take a lot of to get this accomplished since we're only home a few days out of the month.

BUT it's so far been a totally fun project and we've gotten some of the power tools we're going to need! I love playing with new power tools!

I'll be updating this particular thread as things progress instead of starting a new one every month. This will make it easier for me to keep track of what's being done. So stay tuned!

Ah, water: you need to decide where the water is going to go, as it will potentially affect the rest of your layout. If the floor will be concrete slab I *highly* recommend putting your hydrant just inside an exterior wall (even if you have to add extra insulation due to climate), because there is a reasonably good chance that at some point you will need to dig up the %#&#($ water line to find or fix a problem, and you do not want to have to use a jackhammer for that! Also it is vital to put the water somewhere that you will never, ever be backing a truck into the barn; and preferably on a side where you can easily locate a drain beneath it to lead to somewhere outside the barn that's not an animal pen or driveway.

The current design looks pretty space-efficient! Do you REALLY want double doors on animal pens though? It makes it easier for animals to get out, and harder for you to latch the door easily and swiftly after going into the pen.

If you move the single door on each brooder/storage space to the main aisle side, you can make it 3' wide and get a wheelbarrow in there when you want to clean, which is highly advantageous. (Even if you made those doors 3' wide where they are currently located it would be difficult or impossible to get a wheelbarrow into there b/c of the awkward angle and tight quarters).

If you leave feed in the runs, remember that is more apt to attract rats. (NOt saying don't do it, just saying be aware this might become a problem and have to be changed). You'll have a people door from each pen to its run, yes?

You might want to think about shifting some things a bit so that you end up working with 4' increments of lumber (e.g. make the brooders 6" wider so they are an even 4') if budget is an issue.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

Pat - do you think a single 3 foot wide door would be sufficient for each coop/brooder entry? I had thought about just putting one of the "slide" type locks on one side of the double doors (our bathroom has one on it's double door) to keep it closed unless I specifically open it.

Water - My thought was to have it located just inside the wall of the goat deck/run area. That way it would still be outside but will be easy enough to bring a hose in if I need to. Since we use frost free hydrants here there shouldn't be any issues with the pipes freezing.

Any pipes that need to be run "into" the barn will be pvc and will be mounted above floor level for ease of installation & any repairs or additions that need to be done.

I had thought about moving the door to the brooder/storage area to the short end, but I wanted to use that end for shelves/bins for storage of grain, etc. Although having a 3' wide door WOULD make it easier to clean if/when I needed too. What to do, what to do ...

Food - hmmm ... we don't have rat issues around here but we DO have mouse problems. Feeding inside the coop also ensures that the chickens will know where to return too. And all the other animals will be fed inside so .. if I were to change the doors from double 2' doors to a single 3' door that would give me an additional 1' of space. With that 1' of space I could build a feeder that can be filled from the outside wall of the coop.

As far as "increments of 4' " I had already been thinking about that and, while budget isn't really an issue, I hate waste, lol. The interior walls won't really be "solid" walls per se so since we're going to be using 6"x6" posts 8" oc it would be pretty easy to just attach 2"x4"x8' directly to the posts on the outer side, thereby giving me not only ease of attaching wire, etc, but also giving 6" more space between the posts that aren't blocked from the coop areas.

I'm seriously wanting to use sand on the floors of the chicken coops, at least, so having a 2"x4" board laying on side and attached to the outter edge of the posts would give me that extra to hold the sand in. It'd be fairly simple to design a small ramp to help get the wheelbarrow over that or I could try and design a removable board for the door area so that I wouldn't have to worry about that.

Like I said earlier, the devil is in the details! But I want to make sure I have as many of the "details" worked out ahead of time before we start building. The fewer changes I have to make after the fact the better.

Thanks for all of your input, you're really making me think things through and I do appreciate it!

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A 3' wide door is perfectly fine for everything other than mid- to large-sized livestock. You can get a wheelbarrow through it, that's what matters And a single door takes no coordination to close, whereas with double doors they have to be aligned right and it can be harder to sneak out between them without an escape-bound animal following you.

Well, again I've been thinking about this whole barn. And it's got me wondering a thing or two.

If we place one of the long sides facing south, that'll put the other long side facing north. If I have coops and runs along the north side, how is that going to affect temperature of the coops during the colder months? If I open the doors to the runs on the "north" side it will allow colder air in through the pop doors.

Now, if I orient the barn so one of the shorter ends is facing south, I loose a large "heat sink" since the long sides will be on the east and west, but having the long sides on the east and west sides make a bit more sense, because the runs will get more sun that way as the sun rises and sets. Then the other short end will be on the north and won't get much at all.



Feel like maybe I'm overthinking things.

Any advice?

Well, yes, the more southfacing wall you have, the more NORTHfacing wall you will ALSO have And of course when you have your N-side popdoors open, cold breezes will blow thorough (although the better you can set up a windbreak, the less severe it'll be).

But you know, in most places in the US, winds from the W are just as much a problem as winds from the N, so this is kind of a basic inescapable fact of having ANY building with runs on more than 2 sides, irrespective of which particular direction its long axis goes

You DO need ventilation during the winter, so as long as you can keep strong wind out by means of windbreak (and possibly strips of plastic or burlap or whatever over the doorways), it's not so bad. I have that problem really bad where I am, and on super windy days I only open one side of the building at a time -- the sussexes on the E side get their popdoor open in the morning, then at lunch I shut it and open the 'hen pen' and turkeys'. With only one side of the building open at a time, you get a LOT less cross-breeze and windiness in there.

Heat sink is not really dependant on the orientation of the barn, that affects heat COLLECTION (if you were going to have lots of S-facing windows or other solar collectors) but your thermal mass is basically "the whole inside of the building", mainly the floor.

Does that help any?

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

I've been looking at the brooder page and just had a thought ... The sections I have marked off as brooder pens ... make the wall between the pen and the coop next to it strictly of wire. That way when I have a broody hen I can just give her that area to brood the babies in!

My question about that is this .. if I divide with just chicken wire and place a broody in there with the eggs/chicks what sort of precautions should I take when re-introducing her to the regular coop? i.e. should I wait x number of days/weeks etc or just place a door there for her and the babies to retreat back into the brooder area?