Barn Building, Saw Teeth and More

By Farm Collector readers
Published on January 17, 2025
article image
courtesy of Wes Moe

Barn Building Memories

The article on Barn Moving 101 reminded me of my father’s barn near Northwood, ND. It was similar in style to the one pictured in the article. It measured 32 feet wide, 35 feet high, and 60 feet long. He hired a crew to move it about a mile from a farm he had just purchased. They jacked it up, put huge timbers under it (about 12 inches square, if I remember accurately). They loaded the front on an Army-style all-wheel drive truck and the rear on two dollies, each with 4 truck tires. They had some kind of system of chains that allowed them to steer the dollies as they moved along the narrow township road and turned corners.

Once it was in place, my father transformed it into a “loafing barn”—that is, one where the cows (a combination of milk cows and beef cows) were loose except for milking. He boarded off space in the front (east) end. In it were four stalls for milking (two cows at a time), a feed bin, a stall for a team of draft horses, and a calf pen. The rest of the barn was open, with a hay manger along the north wall, a trough for silage jutting into the open space from the silo on the south side of the barn, and an electrically-heated drinking cup in the east end (water was also available on the other side of the wall, in the calf pen). He cut a 24-foot door on the south side, which remained open except in the case of a bad blizzard. In nice weather, he would feed hay outside. Through the large door we drove a tractor and loader each spring to clean out the manure.

By the way, a semi-retired carpenter was helping him with the changes. One day, my father asked him to cut a 24-foot door in the south side of the barn. The carpenter said, “You can’t do that!” My father replied, “If you won’t, I will.” The carpenter relented, cut the opening and added the extra framing to keep it strong. Even this was an innovation! My father was not following someone else’s pattern!

From what I understand, his was one of the first “loafing barns” that far north. Once it was working, there were two busloads of farmers from Canada who came to see it. When it was being built, the prevailing opinion of local farmers had been that it would never work, because the udders of the cows would freeze. (This did happen, of course, when cows were kept in stalls in a warm barn and were let outside in cold weather.) However, with a well-bedded, covered area where they remained dry and sheltered from the wind, this was never a problem.

The barn still exists, but it is no longer used for cows. The haymow floor has been removed, the building reinforced, the large door filled in, and a new large door added to the front. It now houses my brother’s farm trucks and some small equipment.

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