Heating barns (Dan H.)

DanHolohan

The things we often don't consider:

<a href="http://www.thehorse.com/viewarticle.aspx?ID=10813&source=rss"target="_blank">Heated Barns</a>

Unknown

Don't know of any,,,

heated horse barns in my neck of the woods. The only thing they heat is the bathroom to keep the water from freezing and so the seat ain't so cold. Good to know though should I run across one.

RopeaGoat

I've seen quite a few folks running extra heat zones from their outdoor wood boilers into the barn but usually only the workshop/tackroom/bathroom. I mean after all the animals are all donning fur this year. Oh the humanity of them wearing fur....

Rich Kontny_5

Dairy barns and northern horses

I admit that we never made it to Carnegie Hall but I have been in many barns. Wisconsin is the dairy state and I spent many cold nights with my dad unthawing the milk houses that were attached to the old style Gambelled roofed barns.Notice that it was the attached milk houses that froze not the water in the barns.

As a very young city slicker(I came from Ashland pop.10,000) I asked several of my many dumb questions as my dad and I unthawed a milkhouse one January night in the 60's when it was about 30 below.

I said "Mr Kriskovich" why does it seem warmer in the barn than in your milkhouse? Why is the water not froze in those nuzzle water contraptions? And what do you heat the barn with?

Mr Krisovich was a very nice man, however I did notice a smirk and roll of his eyes as he glanced at my dad. Well son he said " we call that a hay loft upstairs because that is where we keep our hay" so I said! "son hay is a great insulator" Ya but what about the heat,where does it come from? After another chuckle he pointed to one of his 50 plus cows and said "did you know that Guersey weighs about 1600#" I said I do now but what does that have to do with it? Old Mr. Kriskovich said do you know what body heat is? Ya I said that is sweat! He replied by saying "ask your dad on the way home.

We finished up and my dad cleared his dash off so the windows would unthaw in his truck,he turned and said " the cows huddled in the barn give off combined body heat,young man! And in a fairly tight barn with 8ft of hay in the loft as insulation I never ever have seen water freeze in the barn."

Sorry Dad!

Horses were my mother's passion and she always said you rarely could get them in a barn, they may back their butts against a wind break or wall but unless it was extremely cold with dangerous wind chills they are well conditioned for cold weather.

Horse barns with heat are an idea that was brought over with the immigrants. I have yet to hear of a horse barn in any Native American encampment or village!

Little surprise that animals subjected to heat are catching a variety of sicknesses.

I will check that Native American thing with the Chippewa and Ojibwe friends I went through school with.

Rich K.


Make Peace our Passion while Supporting our Troops!

Joe Billow_6

I just finished a horse barn. Put radiant on one half opposite of the stalls, rest of barn is rubber matted. Thanks to Brad for a basic BTU output for large animals the owner and I are going to give just the radiant a try(may add a heat handler if needed). According to the heat loss, with the supplemental horse heat, it should work. We did go over the need and installed some power vents. Thanks Dan for the info, I am going to print it and show the owner.

Joe Billow

bobbyg_3

dairy barn

I've worked with radiant in a dairy barn here in hoosierland. It was the barn where the cows give off their milk. I was told they produce more milk in this environment? Once I was waiting for the contractor to look at their water heater and the cows made me feel self-conscious......they were all staring at me with a look like "let me in I'm about to explode!"......I had to walk around the corner where they couldn't see me. lol