Part 5

In locating troughs, follow the same principles laid down under FEEDING FLOORS. Dig the trenches for the concrete supports and carry the concrete (mixed 1: 2: 4) to the necessary height by means of open box forms similar to the one shown on page 36. Use a spirit level to get the tops of these supports even. Immediately set the outside trough form, previously made with openings in the bottom board, to match the concrete supports. Provide a 2-inch drain hole, corked with a greased, tapering wooden plug long enough to extend through the concrete. Place 1 inch of concrete over the bottom, lay the heavy woven wire fencing so that it will extend up into the side walls. Tamp in the bottom the remaining 3 inches of concrete. Finish this concrete with a steel trowel. At once set in the sloping inside mold, built as one piece and without a bottom. Fill the space between the inside and outside forms with wet concrete. After the concrete is hard enough to bear considerable pressure of the thumb (usually five to seven hours), carefully remove the inside mold. No painting with neat cement (cement mixed with water) or plastering will be needed if the inside form is smooth. Do not take down the outside forms for two weeks. To make this same trough of suitable height for small calves or sheep, place around it a fill of gravel of the necessary depth. Two men can build such a trough in less than a day.

=Materials Required= Crushed rock or screened gravel 1 cubic yard at $1.10 $1.10 Sand ½ cubic yard at $1.00 .50 Portland cement 1½ barrels at $2.50 3.75 ----- $5.35

Feeding Troughs for Hogs

Feeding troughs for hogs are usually built as a part of the feeding floor, according to the plan shown, and similar to WATERING TROUGHS, page 74.

A Fire-protected Feed Cooker

Concrete is a first aid to the farmer in preventing fires.

The photographs shown here are of a wooden building in which a feed cooker for hogs and poultry is installed.

Discovery of a fire in the building a few years ago led this farmer to thoroughly protect his building by surrounding his cooker with that most fireproof material—concrete.

The old wooden floor was first torn out, a fill of coarse gravel tamped in, and a 5-inch floor of concrete laid on top, mixed 1: 2½: 5. Immediately under and around the cooker the floor was dropped down 8 inches to prevent chance sparks from blowing about.

At the back of the cooker, on the 2 by 4-inch studding, heavy woven wire was securely fastened, and by temporarily placing a wooden wall 4 inches in front, to act as a form, an 8-inch concrete wall was built. This wall was made 8 feet wide and 5 feet high. The foundation for the wall extends 3 feet below the floor level.

On the top of this wall rests the chimney. The chimney is 12 by 14 inches on the outside, with a single flue 8 inches round, and is 10 feet high. This height is sufficient to clear the roof. For the inside form 8-inch sewer pipe was used and left in place (stovepipe or drain tile could also be used). Ordinary box forms were used for the outside forms, made as described on page 36.

The chimney was reinforced with a ½-inch rod running from top to bottom in each corner, 1½ inches from the edge. The lower ends of these rods are firmly embedded in the concrete wall on which the chimney rests.

As this improvement was made by the farm hands, the cost of the floor was only 5 cents a square foot, while the wall and chimney cost $5.00.

Not only has that dread of fire which keeps many a man awake at night been overcome, but the whole feed cooker house can be kept in a most cleanly condition at all times.

Rats, the greatest pest known to the farmer, are driven away. These animals cannot nest in concrete.

Hog Wallows—Automatic Dipping Tanks

A wallow is as necessary for a hog as a bath-tub is for a human being. A clean bath benefits the health of a hog, especially if the wallow is filled with a dipping solution. This combination not only saves the lives of fat hogs on hot days, but also aids greatly in preventing cholera. See DIPPING TANKS, page 76.

Locate the wallow in a convenient place near the water supply. A level, well drained spot, where the mud will not wash into it, is best. (The wallow shown in the photograph is in the hog house, and is a large dish in the concrete floor.) Make the wallow 8 by 12-feet. Dig out the hole with straight sides to the depth of 2 feet 2 inches. Lay a drainage foundation 10 inches thick—see SIDEWALKS, page 29. Set a 10-inch board around the outside of the hole to keep the dirt from crumbling in on the concrete.

Mix the concrete 1: 2: 4 and place a 6-inch floor in the hole. As the concrete is laid, embed woven wire in it 1 inch from the bottom. Have the concrete for the side walls fairly dry and tamp it to the shape and dimensions—4 inches thick at the top and 10 inches at the floor line. The sloping sides make cleaning easy. Keep all animals away from the wallow for two weeks. Three men built this wallow easily in one day.

=Materials Required= Screened gravel or crushed rock 2½ cubic yards @ $1.10 $2.75 Sand 1¼ cubic yards @ $1.00 1.25 Portland cement 4½ barrels @ $2.50 11.25 ------ $15.25

A Corn Crib Floor of Concrete

Rats love grain; and therefore the corn crib is usually the rat headquarters of the farm. By building corn cribs and granary floors of concrete the farmer takes a long step toward rat extermination.

Lay out the building: for the foundation wall, dig a trench 12 inches wide and from 2 to 3 feet below ground level. Set box forms, so as to bring the surface of the finished foundation and floor 1½ to 2 feet above ground level, according to the height of the “drag” conveyor used by local corn-shellers.

As the floor will only be 6 inches thick, fill in between the foundation walls with gravel to within a distance of 6 inches of top of forms. Soak this fill thoroughly, and tamp and roll it well, before placing concrete on top.

Mix concrete (1: 2: 4) and fill the foundation forms. Beginning at one end of the building, lay the concrete floor in sections 4 feet wide, and continue until the entire floor is placed.

In order to fasten the wooden sill for the granary uprights to the concrete floor, insert ¾-inch bolts heads down or strap irons bent like capital =Z=’s at the necessary points in the green concrete of foundation. The bolts are long enough to pass through holes in the sill and to receive nuts and washers. The straps are long enough to be spiked to the uprights.

Finish the surface of the floor with a steel trowel, so as to render scooping of the grain an easy matter.

Approximate cost per square foot of floor surface, 12 cents.

Concrete Barn Floors

Investigations of the Department of Agriculture have disclosed the fact that many cases of typhoid fever and malaria, often considered unaccountable in their origin, are the result of the germs being carried by the house-fly. Screens, flypaper, and poisons are all very well, in a small way, but to free the place of flies means getting rid of the conditions which produce them. Leaving out the manure pile (see MANURE PITS, page 45), the favorite breeding-place of flies is the foul floors of the cow and horse barns. The barn can be almost entirely rid of flies by building floors and manure pits of concrete.

The Advantages of Concrete Floors

There are no flies to make the horses stamp.

Rats have no hiding-place about concrete floors.

No other floor is as slick as a manure-soaked wooden floor. Concrete floors may be finished as rough or corrugated, as may be desired.

Concrete floors do not soak up water. The liquids run into the gutters and thence to the manure pits. The floor may be flushed with water and kept as clean and odorless as a kitchen floor.

All kinds of barn floors must be bedded down. Concrete floors are warmer and cleaner than any other kind, for they are always dry. Besides, heat and cold do not easily pass through concrete.

Concrete floors afford good fire protection. No fire can be started on concrete floors by a shiftless farm “hand” dropping cigarette stubs or matches on their surface.

Good farm “hands” prefer to work where there are concrete floors: they lighten the labor. Concrete floors have no uneven edges to catch the scoop and to ruffle the temper.

Concrete in the Cow Barn

With cleanly milk and butter producers, it is no longer a matter of floor or no floor; it is merely a question of which is the best floor for the cow barn. The best dairymen long ago decided in favor of concrete. On account of many epidemics of “catching” diseases, directly traceable to milk, city authorities are forcing the careless dairyman to decide—concrete floors are one of the requirements for certified milk.

The stalls of dairy barns are arranged with the cows in the opposite rows of stalls standing with their heads or their heels toward each other.

The stall plan depends entirely upon the arrangements for bringing in feed and removing manure. The plan below is for a barn with the cows’ heads toward each other. If the dairyman prefers the other arrangement, the same plan can easily be adapted to it. A width of 8 feet 6 inches provides sufficient room for a manure spreader.

How to Build Dairy Barn Floors

Consider a barn planned to have the two rows of cows facing each other.

Remove all manure and other foreign matter together with such humps of earth as may be necessary to give the floor a slight slope in the direction in which the manure will be taken out. Begin the construction of the floors at the two sides of the barn so that the middle and ends may be used as working space.

On the earthen floor, at a distance of 4½feet from the side walls of the barn, set on edge a line of 2 by 6-inch boards, extending the entire length of the building. Support these boards by stakes driven firmly in the ground on the side of the board away from the barn wall. By means of a carpenter’s spirit level and a grade line, see that the tops of these boards have an even slope (say ⅛-inch per foot) toward the manure pit. Allowing a clear intervening space of 10 inches, set up in a similar way a line of 2 by 8-inch boards with the supporting stakes inside of the 10-inch space and with the top of this board 2 inches higher than the 6-inch board. In this space the drop gutter will later be constructed.

The Alleyway

Between the wall and the 6-inch board tamp in sufficient gravel to even off all irregularities in the ground surface and to allow the building of a 5-inch thickness of floor, sloping ½ inch from the wall toward the gutter. Mix the concrete 1: 2½: 5, tamp into place, and finish the surface with a wooden float and a wire brush. The roughened surface thus produced gives the cows a good footing.

The Stall Floor

With the alley finished, begin the construction of the floor of the stalls proper. For the average sized cow, the usual length of stall is 4 feet 8 inches from stanchion to drop gutter and the width is 3 feet 6 inches. The stall floor should slope not less than ½ inch toward the drop gutter to provide for drainage. If an adjustable stanchion fastener is to be used, set it in the center of the 6-inch manger wall. The length of the stall is regulated by this device. For a stall 4 feet 8 inches long, set the outside board (2 by 12 inches) of the manger wall 5 feet 2 inches from the drop gutter. The top of this board will be 7 inches above the finished floor. This extra height provides a form for the manger wall. In this space, place the 5-inch floor in the same manner as the alleyway was laid. If gas pipe stall divisions are to be used later, make mortises in the floor at the proper points by tamping the concrete around a core of the right size, removing the core when the concrete has stiffened.

The Manger

As soon as the floor of three stalls has been concreted and while the concrete is yet green, build the concrete manger wall upon the new stall floor. The projecting 7 inches of the 2 by 12-inch board already in place serves as the outer wall form. “Toe nail” two 1 by 6-inch boards together at their edges, thus providing a 7-inch height for the other manger wall form and a bearing plate to rest on the green stall floor. Set this wall form so as to leave a 6-inch space for the manger wall. Cross-brace these wall forms upon each other and if necessary drive an occasional nail through the bearing plate into the new concrete. Fill the space between the forms with concrete, setting the stanchion fasteners at the same time. Continue in the same manner until the stall floors are finished. If desired, the back wall of the manger may be given a dish shape for a swinging stanchion.

Then commence the work on the other side of the barn, constructing the floor of the alleyway and stall in exactly the same manner.

The Feedway

With the alleys and stalls finished, begin work on the feedway. If possible, this should be at least 8 feet wide.

As the bottom of the manger should be on a level with the stall floor and since the top of the feedway floor must be at least 8 inches above the bottom of the manger, place sufficient gravel fill (well tamped) to bring about this result. To hold in place the 5-inch concrete of the feedway alley floor and to provide for sloping front walls of the mangers, set a 2 by 10-inch board, spaced (from the other wall of the manger) 1 foot 6 inches at the bottom and 1 foot 10 inches at the top. These sloping walls allow all feed to be swept back into the mangers and all trash to be easily removed from them. Build the 5-inch floor of the feedway, crowning it to 6 inches thick in the middle. See SIDEWALKS, page 31.

Horse Barn Floors

Concrete floors are equally as valuable for the horse barn as for the cow stable. The same principles govern the floor construction. Naturally there must be a few changes in the dimensions. Single stalls are usually 5 feet wide and 9 feet from the front wall of the manger to the drop gutter.

As the gutter is generally covered with a rough cast-iron plate sunk flush with the concrete, carrying liquids alone, it need not be so wide and deep as for the dairy barn. A clear width of 10 and a depth of 3 inches are sufficient.

Concrete Mangers

Many farmers are to-day building their mangers or racks of concrete. “Stump suckers” lose the habit when fed in concrete mangers.

The manger is constructed along the general lines laid down for OUTDOOR FEEDING TROUGHS, page 48. A form satisfactory for building horse barn mangers is shown in the photograph. The feed trough can be molded as a part of the manger by using a box form like an ordinary wooden feeding trough, but 6 inches wider and without end pieces. Saw out the manger forms so that the box will fit the opening. When the manger forms have been filled with concrete to the feed trough level, place 1 inch of concrete over the bottom of the trough form, lay in a strip of heavy woven wire fencing, and then place the remaining 2 inches of the 3-inch bottom. Immediately set upon this concrete a bottomless box with end pieces, of a size to allow for the 4-inch manger wall and the 3-inch side walls of the trough. Fill both manger and trough forms and embed a ½-inch rod in the side walls of the trough 1 inch from the top. Make holes in the manger wall for the hitching strap by inserting a 2-inch greased peg in the concrete. Imbed a 1-foot length of ½-inch rod in the concrete above this hole.

Scientists have found that rats distribute more disease than any other animal. Recognizing the danger, state and city authorities, the world over, are spending vast sums of money in exterminating this pest. If rats have no nesting place, they cannot stay on the farm. Rats and mice cannot find a home about concrete floors, nor can they climb concrete barn walls.

In a stable floored with concrete, the horses can rest at noontime instead of stamping at flies.

Farmers Build Barn Approaches of Concrete

For purposes of drainage, concrete barns are often built on the side of a hill, the lower story being used for the livestock, while the second floor is used as a wagon house and for feed and storage. This arrangement necessitates a “barn approach.” Originally these approaches were simply of earth, piled up in front of the door; and quite often the earth extended beyond the ends of the barn.

By not allowing the approach fill to come right up to the barn, the lower story of the barn receives the full benefit of light and ventilation on all four sides.

The concrete bridge gives a shelter for wagons and tools; while a root cellar may be conveniently built under the barn approach.

Such an approach adds greatly to the appearance of the barn and its surroundings.

Economy of space made it desirable to provide a retaining wall to hold the earth in position—and concrete naturally came into use for the purpose.

The earth fill already in place in front of the barn door should be cut out to the desired width and a trench dug along both sides below the ground level to a depth of 2½ or 3 feet, and 1 foot wide.

Only outside forms are needed, as the earth fill in the barn approach acts as an inside form. These outside forms may be made up in sections as large as desired, of 1-inch planks, with the necessary upright studding.

Mix concrete 1: 2: 4.

Place the concrete in the foundation, erect the forms, holding these in position by nailing to stakes driven back of the forms in the ground. The concrete can be placed with greatest convenience from the top of the earth fill that forms the approach. In shoveling into the form, be careful that the concrete strikes the wood form instead of the earthen side, as concrete mixed with earth does not give the fullest possible strength.

A Concrete Barn Foundation

On account of convenient arrangement, economy of space, and protection to the stock, second story barns have become very popular.

At first the use of concrete for the walls of the first story was looked upon with doubt. It might be damp. It might make a cold stable. Yet the character of the material so well fitted the use that it was tried, found entirely satisfactory, and to-day is being used for the lower story of thousands of barns every year. As this arrangement does not give a perfect fire protection to the stock, a ceiling of concrete is provided, furnishing a floor for the carriage house, hay loft and granary, through which rats cannot gnaw. With this floor of concrete, the top of a barn can burn off and the stock be perfectly safe.

Excavate a foundation trench to a depth below the frost line, twenty inches wide. Fill with concrete mixed 1: 2½: 5. On this foundation erect the forms for the side walls, spaced in such a way as to make the wall 12 inches thick. These forms are made of 1-inch siding, with 2 by 4-inch studs, spaced 18 inches apart. Fasten the forms securely at top and bottom as described in forms for “Small Farm Buildings,” page 82. While erecting the forms, place in position frames for the window and door openings. These frames are removed after the concrete has become hard and the windows and doors placed. If the concrete extends above the windows, place three ½-inch iron rods 3 inches above each opening, and extending 18 inches beyond its sides. Insert bent iron rods in the concrete around the corners, at intervals of every 2 feet of height. Having carried the wall to the desired height, provide for attaching the wooden superstructure to it by placing iron bolts every 5 feet in the concrete while it is yet soft. These should be placed with the head down, allowing the nut end to extend above the wall a sufficient distance to pass through the sill and to afford length for a nut and washer.

If a concrete ceiling is to be placed over the stable, erect forms in the same way as for a cistern cover described on page 69. This ceiling will have to be carefully reinforced, and if there is any doubt about the quantity and position of this reinforcing, a competent engineer should be consulted.

Entire barns of concrete are being built in ever increasing numbers. If so built, the fire danger for that barn is forever removed. A barn of concrete, however, with a wooden roof is not perfectly fireproof. If the hay catches fire in such a barn, the roof is burned up.

Any one who has the ingenuity to build an entire barn of concrete can build a concrete roof as well.

Wind Walls and Their Importance

To be healthy, stock need exercise—in winter as well as summer. But few farms are provided with an exercise lot sufficiently well protected against winter blasts to provide a safe exercising place.

The exercise lot should be located on the warm side of the buildings. Erect the wind wall on the side from which the winter storms most often come. Probably the most convenient way to build the wall will be in sections of 10 feet in length. The wall will be 3 inches thick at top, 12 inches thick at the base, 7 feet above and 3 below ground, with the slope side toward exercise lot.

To securely brace the sections of this wall, large posts (called buttresses) are needed. These posts are the full height of the wall and are 12 by 18 inches square. The narrow side is set with the line of fence, and the buttresses are placed 11 feet apart from center to center. The forms for these buttresses are the same as for gate posts, with the exception that a beveled 2 by 4-inch timber is nailed vertically to the inside of each side wall of the form, 3 inches from the back board. This leaves a slot in the finished buttress, into which the slab sections of the wall are later “keyed.” Through these 2 by 4’s, at points 3 and 15 inches below the tops, bore ⅝-inch holes through which ½-inch reinforcement rods will be placed and allowed to project into the wall proper about 18 inches.

Locate the points for the centers of the buttresses, the first buttress at the beginning of the wall. Dig a hole for each buttress 12 by 18 inches and 4 feet deep and erect the buttress forms. Fill the forms with wet concrete, mixed 1: 2: 4. Do not forget to insert at the proper time the 3-foot lengths of ½-inch rods in the ¾-inch holes above mentioned. Brace the forms securely, to keep them in position. After the first two buttresses are in place, dig out the 1 by 4-foot foundation trench and, over it and between the buttresses, erect the box forms for the slab sections, with the sloping side next to the lot. These forms are made of 1-inch siding nailed to 2 by 4-inch studding securely braced at bottom and tied together by cross-pieces at the top. On the working side, add the siding as needed, so as to facilitate the placing of the concrete.

Remove the side forms for buttress just before placing the forms for wall proper. In the center of wall, within 6 inches of the top, embed a 10-foot length of ½-inch iron rod. After the wall is one week old, take down the wall forms, erect them between the next two buttresses, and proceed with the construction in the same manner.

Wind walls are often made with straight sides. While this takes more concrete, the saving in erection of forms probably offsets this additional cost.