Barn
|
A barn in southern Ontario, Canada |
:''This article is about a type of agricultural building, for other uses see
Barn (disambiguation).A
barn is an agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace. It may sometimes be used to house
animals or to store farming vehicles and equipment. Barns are most commonly found on a
farm or former farm.
Older barns were usually built from
lumber sawed from
timber on the farm, although stone barns were sometimes built in New England and other areas where stone was a cheaper building material. Modern barns are more typically steel buildings. Prior to the 1900s, most barns were timber framed (also known as post and beam) forming very strong structures to withstand storms and heavy loads of animal feed. From about 1900 to 1940, many large
dairy barns were built in northern USA. These commonly have
gambrel roofs to maximize the size of the hayloft above the dairy roof, and have become associated in the popular image of a
dairy farm. The modern trend is to build several smaller barns for dairying, partly due to the fact that these large wooden barns, especially when filled with hay, could make spectacular fires that were usually total losses for the farmers.
In older style barns, the upper area was used to store
hay and sometimes grain. This is called the mow or the hayloft. A large door at the top of the ends of the barn could be opened up so that hay could be put in the loft. The hay was hoisted into the barn by a system containing
pulleys and a trolley that ran along a track attached to the top ridge of the barn. Trap doors in the floor allowed animal feed to be dropped into the
mangers for the animals.
A farm often has pens of varying shapes and sizes used to shelter large and small animals. The pens used to shelter large animals are called stalls and are usually located on the lower floor. Other common areas, or features, of a typical barn are a tack room (where bridles, saddles, etc. are kept), a feed room (where animal feed is stored), a drive bay (a wide corridor for animals or machinery), and a silo where fermented grain or hay (called ensilage or haylage) is stored.
* A popular expression for a person having poor aim when throwing an object or when shooting at something is "he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn".
* The physics unit "
barn", which is a unit of exceedingly small area, was named for the "barn", given the surprisingly large size of this property for a particular element.
* Many barns in the northern
United States are painted red with a white trim. One possible reason for this is that
ferric oxide, which is used to create red paint, was the cheapest and most readily available chemical for farmers in
New England and nearby areas.
For more information about barns go to the following website: [
1]
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Barn raising*
Barnyard*
Farmhouse (building)*
List of building types
