New Buck Barn

Black Mesa Ranch

Snowflake Arizona

Projects

Our new Buck Barn with Cattle Run-In Shed

Dec 2008 - Jan 2009

It's been 8 years now since we dragged the old abandoned travel trailer a quarter mile across the ranch and renovated it to become our new goat barn. That trailer served our original two does quite well, then as the doe herd grew the trailer was renovated again to accommodate them. Once the new doe barn was completed in 2004, the old trailer became home to our growing group of bucks. That ugly, old, green trailer has served us well. But in 2008 the roof began leaking quite badly and the floor started falling in. In the fall of 2008 we decided it was time to build the boys a nice permanent space. We also decided to incorporate a run-in shed for the cows so that they would have a nice dry area when the weather is bad and also to have a dry place for them to eat.

Knowing that bucks and cattle can be pretty rough on "the furniture" we finally came to the conclusion that concrete block would be the best material to use. It certainly has worked well for the doe barn. But we couldn't find any dry stack blocks for the project and we just aren't very skilled in conventional masonry. Luckily we were referred to Gerry Pierce, a local mason. Gerry came out and gave us a bid to do the block work and was also willing to help us with the other heavy lifting.

So on December 1 David started work on leveling the site and digging the foundation. Not long after that Gerry and his partner, Beau, came out and started work in earnest. They made short work of getting the rebar into the foundation trench, pouring the foundation, and laying block. Those walls went up straight and square. We were quite impressed and pleased with their work. The winter weather was extraordinarily mild so the block work went faster than we anticipated.

Once the walls were up we put in the beams and top plates, then Gerry and Beau came back to help put up the trusses, purlins, and roofing. They also did a nice job of sheathing the gable ends.

We had so much success with the manger set-up in the doe barn that we duplicated it on both the buck side and the run-in shed side. David wired the barn for electricity and installed cameras.

The 1152 sq. ft. barn (36 X 32) consists of a 16' by 32' buck space, a 16' by 20' cattle run-in shed, and a 16' by 20' feed room.

As with the doe barn, we decided on a standing seam-type metal roof (with several translucent skylight panels) over engineered and locally manufactured full-span trusses and chose a deep green color for the roofing to help minimize the new structure's visual impact.

We are absolutely delighted with the finished barn and expect many decades of use out of it.