# Barn flooring? - I have an idea page 2!



## HoosierShadow

As if the many things we are dealing with right now isn't keeping me on our toes with the goats...

We have had record rainfall in the last month, and the ground has just been so saturated the water has had no place to go, so it's soaked up into one side of the barn. This was the first day I've had a chance to muck it all out...N.A.S.T.Y. :sigh: 

Any quick/easy fixes that don't cost a fortune? Time is the problem - my husband works 12 hour shifts 6 days a week. 
My husband also thinks just adding dirt to raise the floor is the answer, but I don't think so....I think it might still soak in.

For a temporary fix that might last a little while, I was wondering.... If I got pallets and lined them up side by side, and put some cheap OSB on top of it, think that would help and last a little while since the pallets would be there to support the OSB?
I can try to get a layer of rock to put under it... or could I use sand or something else? 

I wish we had finished the barn when we planned...but we're planning to add on to it to make it bigger this summer.


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## liz

*Re: Barn flooring?*

You can use gravel or small rocks over the floor as it is, then put the pallets down....OSB is a quick fix but won't last very long, if you have plywood that will last much longer and take a while before it soaks up any urine, or just bridge the gaps between the pallet slats with other slats...it will allow urine to drain and won't absorb the way OSB would.


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## Robynlynn

*Re: Barn flooring?*

I have wondered myself what the best answer for a barn floor would be.
My goats spend thier time in loafing sheds out in the pasture but during my winter kidding season I have mother's put up in pens in a small machine shed that is just sitting on a cement foundation. I have a terrible water problem when it starts to thaw. I place one pallet in each pen...pens are wide as the pallet and i have what ever wood I can scrounge up screwed on on the top. (my dad found some old wooden billboard type signs when he hauled his grass clippings to the dump. he grabbed them for me and I cut them up and used them for so many things!) part of the pen has cement floor with straw down~ the back of the pen has the pallet with wood on top and bedded with straw. It's a big mess when it thaws but at least they can stay dry. I try to have everyone moved out before the "big" thaw. Cleaning it, is messy and involves taking down my fencing panels and scooping it out with the tractor....be thinking of ease of clean up and if you'll be able to get the tractor in to clean it.
some of the horse people may have a good dolution as I seem to recall hearing that some horse barns have clay floors??? :chin:


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## HoosierShadow

*Re: Barn flooring?*

I'm going to try and get some pallets tomorrow, if not then on Monday. I think it will be fine, and save us on bedding! I can layer the pallets real good with bedding as suggested 

It rained again today and I know it's going to soak up into that side of the barn again! The barn is 16x12 so it will take a couple of trips. I am more concerned with the back stall where our doelings are at - they have 2 pallets they can lay on if water were to seep in. It doesn't puddle or anything, just gets the bedding wet and yucky.


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## milk and honey

*Re: Barn flooring?*

We have a ton of rain here in Washington.. and I have sure liked the wood chips in the yard! Dont know how they would work in a barn though ??? I like the pallet idea too.
I have a small goat shed with a cement floor, but I always put plastic tarps under the hay... It just makes the clean up easier...
Good luck


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## PznIvyFarm

*Re: Barn flooring?*

My barn had a dirt floor and was always damp (long before i got goats) I had ducks in the pen and you know they are really messy, so I dug a big pit in the corner, sunk a plastic garbage can into it that had some holes in it (and I made a few more) and filled it with rocks for a dry well. The edge of it was slightly lower than the surrounding dirt. I put a pallet over it and that was their bucket corner (since they always splashed everywhere). I then put railroad ties down for joists and put plywood over the rest of the area where the pallet wasn't.

I later added a second pen next to it, and did another dry well in the adjacent corner and put down some more railroad ties as joists. I didn't bother putting a pallet over the dry well this time b/c I was putting chickens in the pen and they weren't messy, I just wanted somewhere for the water to go.

When I got goats, the ducks were long gone, the chickens were moved, and I left the pallet in the one corner where I put their bucket. I did have to replace the pallet this past summer, but I peeked at the railroad ties (the edges I could see at least) and they were not soft at all, and it was relatively dry under the flooring. Not sure what it looks like now, b/c the part of the floor that is still uncovered dirt has been moist. (very unusual, but the weather is very unusual) I just toss down shavings and sweep them up periodically. It was drying out this past week, but we just had another torrential downpour, so i'm sure it will be bad again.


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## Trip Trap Mountain

*Re: Barn flooring?*

our dirt floor got soaked last night during a huge storm. ran right down the hill under the walls and washed all through the shed... poor girls probably slept standing up.  so now i'm starting to think about flooring...
gravel with pallets over you say? how do you get the pallets to hold still? seems like they would be wobbly since our floor is uneven.


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## Randi

*Re: Barn flooring?*

Stone dust with mats would work well. It allows for good drainage and makes an nice easy clean surface.


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## Trip Trap Mountain

*Re: Barn flooring?*



Randi said:


> Stone dust with mats would work well. It allows for good drainage and makes an nice easy clean surface.


what kind of mats?


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## freedomstarfarm

*Re: Barn flooring?*

I also have the stone dust floor in our new barn and put horse stall mats over it. http://www.tractorsupply.com/equine...t-rubber-horse-stall-mat-4-ft-x-6-ft--2219003


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## Randi

*Re: Barn flooring?*

That's what I use too. Horse stall mats. Actually if the area is small you can use rubber welcome mats from Walmart.


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## Trip Trap Mountain

*Re: Barn flooring?*

so when you clean it out you can just hose those off? pretty neat. 
after standing down there looking at the back of our barn today... i think what we really need is a drainage ditch around the outside. (it's at the immediate bottom of a steep hill) will be thinking on ways to install one for free/cheap. i think i'm going to line it with felt and then fill it with rip-rap. we have a bunch left over from doing the ditches for our steep driveway. digging it out will be the worst part.


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## HoosierShadow

*Re: Barn flooring?*

I put pallets down in the one stall where the 4-H girls sleep, and pieces of OSB over it for now. But it's just a temporary fix. The inside of the barn isn't real level right now and sits a bit low, so it needs to be raised. but I don't think raising it is going to solve the problem. 
I don't know that my husband will use the stall mats  The barn is only 12x16 until we add onto it <possibly another 8'x12'. I can't wait to get it done. We're almost done with our fencing project, should be done by the weekend if it doesn't rain this afternoon/tomorrow afternoon. After that we can concentrate on the barn.

We really do need a drain, but there's just no where for the water to go. If we have a drain ran over to the creek, what if the creek comes up? Then the water would definitely come up into the barn  I need to do some investigating on this....I'm so tired of a soggy barn plus it stinks no matter how much you clean it out. This is the worst it's ever been inside & out.


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## Trip Trap Mountain

*Re: Barn flooring?*

i've been working on our drainage ditch all week. it's almost done. will get some pictures soon. since i only had to do it for the addition it only had to be about 15' long. hopefully it will work! the floor is still drying out from the "flooding" 5 days later. my dad has some pallets for me. i may try to rig up some flooring with them... but hopefully the drainage ditch will do the trick for now.


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## freedomstarfarm

*Re: Barn flooring?*

If the floor is really wet and you choose to use the stall mats I think they should be placed on top of the pallets.


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## HoosierShadow

*Re: Barn flooring?*

I have an idea....!

Tell me if you think this will work, because I plan to start this tomorrow if possible.

We have a whole stack of wood cut in firewood length that we use for things here and there....lately I made a walkway that works perfect for the goats so they don't have to walk in the mud going into the back doorway of the barn addition.

That walkway got me thinking...

What if I dig up about 5-7 inches of dirt, lay a thin layer of compost 
, then place the wood side by side over that, just wedge them together so there are no gaps...put another layer of compost over that, then cover it with the dirt...

Think that would work? I have a wood walkway in front of the front stall because of the water soaking up in that corner and outside on the walkway I mentioned...works great.

Time consuming, but I'd love to not have to spend the $$ on rock <I want to get some roofing and stuff to start on the barn addition!>.

BTW, i forgot to mention I can put the dirt on tarp or something of that sort so when I pull it out of the barn the sun might be able to dry it some before I put it back in  Could be a good fix and something we can do over the weekend.


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## liz

The compost would basically rot away and hold in moisture...sorry.
Now, using the split logs may work for a little while but they too would eventually rot away.


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## HoosierShadow

Thanks! The wood isn't split, and has been sitting for 3 years and is in great condition - even the ones buried on the bottom. They are all from small, but strong trees when we were clearing out some of the property.


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## liz

So it's pretty well cured then...it should last awhile, even if you could use rock from the crick bed and put a layer of those on the floor then the wood on top it would still drain well and it's cheap...minus the labor of getting them out of the crick.


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## HoosierShadow

Great idea Liz thanks! The creek is up a bit because of the rain yesterday, but I know I can dig out some of the rocks  I am going to start digging out the dirt later this morning, it's going to be a job! But it's supposed to be cool and cloudy today so a good day to start this project. I know the goats will appreciate it when we're done! And I'm tired of all the wasted bedding


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## Randi

I think the creek rock idea is super. A little at a time cover them with cheap walmart welcome mats. It will make a very cheap permanent solution. :clap:


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## milk and honey

I LOVE Cheap solutions... Yahh!


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## freedomstarfarm

I don't know how much the welcome mats are at Wlamart or how thick they are so before you buy compare them to the 4x6 very thick durable ones at TSC for $35 http://www.tractorsupply.com/royal-mat-rubber-horse-stall-mat-4-ft-x-6-ft--2219003
Gosh it sounds like I am the sales person for TSC. :laugh:


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## PznIvyFarm

They used to use cordouroy roads over wet areas, basically thin branches laid one way and then the other for wet areas, as they rotted they just added more. I may do this, i have lots of twiggy scrub trees.


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## HoosierShadow

I started on this project and taking a break until my kids get home from school so they can help me. It's a job getting the wet bedding up. What is frustrating is I just cleaned the stall real good not even a week ago, and it was so soaked on one side 

I am just using the logs from the pile. I think they will be fine. The 16'x12' part of the barn is divided into 2 stalls - front stall isn't quite 12' long because I have a walkway there leading to the back stall. Well that walkway area is what was soaking up water the most. I put my logs over it about a month or so ago, and they have worked GREAT. When I tore out the walkway area, and started on it, I put one layer of smaller wood <from small tree trunks> they were lined up one way, while I put larger ones on top lined up the other way. So hopefully this will help with the problem.

If this works for now, then we may hold off on the stall mats until we build our barn addition. We want to add on to the front of the barn, I'm guessing the addition would be somewhere around 10'x17' We will have to level that floor as well, then we could do all the floor mats at the same time.

We just have sooo many projects we need to finish, anything I can do to save $$ but make it work is a ++++ . My husband can't help me with the barn floor because he has to finish the fence. long story short I have 'one' pen when I used to have two! We HAVE to have two pens - one for the herd, and one for the young does and the mama with twins because our buck and buck kids are with the rest of the herd.

So all the girls are in my backyard during the day...which is okay once in a while, but they think my deck is there for them to sunbathe and party on!


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## freedomstarfarm

Sounds like a good project; I like the wood idea!
Our chores are always never-ending or the to do list keeps getting added onto as some get checked off.


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## HoosierShadow

Got it done!!! WHEW!!!! Well the front stall anyway!!!  Raised the floor several inches! My kids kept saying it looked soooo nice LOL I never thought dirt could look good :laugh:

We have the large pile of wood and figured we'd hang onto it for any little projects that come up, so glad we kept it --- we sold half of it a couple of years ago for firewood .

Tomorrow we have to clean up around the outside, think I might make a temporary walkway from the barn to the gate, it's just so darned icky/muddy  Looking forward to the dry days ahead!!!!


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## freedomstarfarm

Wow! Got that much done already. :thumb: 
Take a photo of it and the other stall before and after. Would love to see and it will be nice for you too look back and see how it used to be.


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## HoosierShadow

We've had a lot of rain the past several days, and the floor is holding up! No issues at all, so as soon as I get a chance I will work on getting the rest of the barn floor built up the same way. I haven't gotten any pictures, but basically all I did was dig up several inches and put a layer of wood that isn't split but cut into pieces the size of firewood, lined it up, the side that was leaking I did a double layer <laid one row facing north/south and a second layer east/west>.


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