[Hayloft] Cattle Shed

or [Center-Entry Wide-Rectangular] Livestock Barn (CEWR Lk B)
or [Hayloft Cattle Shelter] Barn
or [Small Livestock-Barn]

Diagnostics

1. Size: medium size: About 45x20 ft.
2. Shape: * wide rectangular form
3. Height: ** hay loft (with hay doors on exterior, often centered on walls)
4. Width: varying width: usually 3 to 5 bays wide, though as little as 2 to as many as 7+
5. Depth: * 1 to 1.5 bays deep
6. Roof: side-gabled roof
7. Door: * center long-side entry - wagon doorway (but with wide-open wall... perhaps this is a subtype)
8. Plan: * Large open space on ground floor with no floor; manger is usually along back wall, but may be on side in earlier examples. Single open hayloft above with narrow opening over manger below; hay delivery may be through open bay where wagon comes into barn; haydoors on eave elevations, and/or gable hay door.
9. Structure:
10. Ornament: usually unadorned

• no interior flooring (none needed for cattle, as stated by Boggs, WV)
• no windows
• plain typical barn siding (?) unpainted vertical board
• often doorways cut along lee side to use as cattle loafing Shed
• * hay door over centered main entry in some examples
• ** manger along back wall in most examples (fed through slot in ceiling from hayloft)

• vs. [Gable-Entry Narrow Rectangular] Livestock Barn: Is this an earlier version that was reduced to a more efficient size and reoriented to a more efficient placement? Into GENR Livestock Barn? No: It is not like the loft was separated and placed elsewhere, leaving the cattle shelter - because the GENR Livestock Barn is for housing cattle (in stalls), not just sheltering them (in an open area).
• Many Michigan barns are similar: small 3 bay, assymetrical, smaller than Ohio average (e.g.) - but these appear to be elongated small Yankee Barns.
• May be related to [Mountain Stable] Barn (though that is apparently gable-front orientation, and becoming less plausible)

• Observed most often in level to rolling, rich farmland...
• Certain farmers in certain regions chose to engage in cattle-raising...
• Rich farmland apparently made cattle-raising a major agricultural activity...
• Cattle-raising as a major activity required modernity to be profitable...
• Modernity required major buidings
• Regions Observed:
• western Pickaway County, from Ross to Franklin (SR 104 & 207 regions) (western and northern boudaries unreconnoitered) (Fall 2000+)
• Great Black Swamp region: northern Henry and southern Fulton counties (western and northern boudaries unreconnoitered) (winter 1999/2000)

• ? 19?? [Oregon publication] p?
• ...one illustration...

• Center-Entry Wide-Rectangular Livestock Barn - Good technical name, but center entry may be for only a subtype
• Small Livestock-Barn - but "livestock barn" is too general, and they are not always small
• "Covered Barnyard" - as described in "The Ohio Farmer" of 19 May 1906 (but that is a bit larger structure, essentially a modified Transverse Frame or something similar)
• Hayloft Cattle Shelter - "shelter" is too indefinite a description
• Hayloft Cattle Shelter Shed - indefinite, even if approaching accuracy for contemporary literature, and too indecisive: is it a shelter or a shed?
• Hayloft Cattle Shelter Barn - better, but "barn" may imply housing (in stalls)
• Cattle Shed - what the farmers call it, but lacks description and accuracy
• Hayloft Cattle Shed - the best compromise I can come up with between the vernacular name ("cattle shed") and a distinctive, differentiating technical descriptor ("hayloft").

Examples:

images are approximately same scale, though seen through different 35mm camera lenses (28mm, 50mm, or various for b/w images) or varying artist's perspective and accuracy

Built

Also seen:

• Franklin County, Jackson Township, SE corner of intersection of right triangle created by SR665 and other roads west of Shadeville - 2/2001.
• ˆ SR 104, Darby Farm at Crescent Terrace at Darby Creek - 12/2000.
• Delaware County, Radnor Township, [river road E side Scioto River] just N of Wheelersburg - 12/2000.
• Jackson Township, Franklin County, southeast of Grove City
• Oregon state publication
• some in NW Ohio

Plans or Photos: Published

Halstead 32t, figure 16, 17

• 30x40 feet: large - appears to be LS/SHE but illustration makes it look deceptively small
• though deeper than ideal
• "best to have doors or boards to close front"
• unshuttered large loft windows for light & air
• gable roof
• no ground-level doors on inside

"A Second Western Cattle Barn" Halstead 48-50; figure 35, 36

• may appear to be LS/SHE but illustration makes it look deceptively small - best regarded as [Hayloft] Cattle Shed (and a doufold version [two wings] in contrast to the trifold)
• wings flanking core, creating L-shaped agglomeration (bifiold)
• gable roof
• loft windows may have 6-pane windows
• large sliding ground-level doors on inside allowing a maximum of 50% opening in wall...quote?
• ...dimensions?
• ...what is in corner unit?

"Lovejoy's Farm Barn" Sanders 25; figure 8

The photo is not the clearest, but there appears to be no hay doors to a hayloft, and the roof is probably too low to have much of a functional hayloft. Additionally, the name "cattle shed" implies no loft; therefore, it does not fall into the classification of a [Hayloft] Cattle Shed (or wing). (As such, I suppose it could have been built with only a shed roof, but this is a more pleasing silhouette.) Note the saltbox roof profile, less practical for a loft...though possibly ok for a drop-down slot over the back of stalls, with space for a feed alley behind - that would eliminate the need for a loft over the back 1/3, and a loft in-use would even complicate matters...

"A Cattle Feeding Barn" Sanders 67; figure 91, 92, 93

To get best results among average cattle and in a climate like that of the Corn-belt the animals should run loose in a rather small yard, with shelter from wind and storm.

...The enclosed yard...is provided with a shed on three sides, 8' in the clear and with a hay loft above. There is a manger running along the outside of the shed in which may be fed hay or silage. Hay is thrown in this directly from the mow through a slit in the floor... (emphasis added)

Other than the trifold arrangement and gambrel roof, this is a defining plans book design, and has great defining comments for the type...though much different from original idea of the type.

Are there any built examples?

"A Barn for Feeding Cattle Loose" Sanders 68; figure 94

Hay stored above is thrown through chutes into the central feeding alley, and thence placed in two long mangers, in which grain may also be fed.

The openings may be at the ends or sides and wagons will be driven through to remove the manure.

This building may be of any convenient length, or may enclose three sides of a square open to the south in which cattle are sheltered.

It is all of joist [plank?] construction, without sills or wooden floor. The floor is hard clay, which is as good as anything where cattle run loose. The barn has a hay track in the peak and hay is taken in at one end of barn.

The suggested axial/center feed alley/manger is different from the typical observed [Hayloft] Cattle Shed. Also, such an unit could easily be removed later, obscuring the original design and use of the barn.

"An Illinois Stallion Barn" Sanders 106-107; figure 165

The quaint illustration has a skew in the perspective at the shed and hyphen junction.

(This part of the figure has been cropped and edited to remove distracting water and fence lines)

"Shed, Pen, and Rack for Sheep" Halstead 77; figure 71

• looks like smaller, sheep-sized version of this.

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 © INTREPID HISTORICAL SERVICES - Kevin B. Coleman Chillicothe, Ohio, USA
Adapted in part 04/28/02 from Freehand document "Livestock Barn Type" created 01/01/02 last modified 01/21/02