Everything you ever wanted to know (or not really) about cleaning a barn but were too afraid to ask

I took some pictures one Saturday of our daily barn cleaning activities. I only go to the barn on Saturdays or if I have a snow day. But I did go for 4 1/2 years (even when I was very pregnant with Van and Anna) pretty faithfully. I don't go on Sundays because I am running the Sunday School program and I need to be there at 8:45 or so. But Anna and Van go every day with Grandma or Daddy. And by every day I mean, every day from November until about April when we keep the cows out all day. I am going to give you a run down on what we do. When we first go into the barn, it looks like the above picture. Cows in the stanchions. You can see in the above picture two rows of cows but there is another row you can't see. There is also a calf pen in the back. That's Chip and Anna in the above picture.

This is a front view of the other side of the barn.

Ok, now the cows are out and it's time to get to work. This is the 'before' picture. Lots of manure and hay all over, the mats get moved around because the cows kick them out of place. PS. The barn is really old. Chip is doing it over this summer. I'll be sure to post pictures of that. So there are lots of holes, cobwebs, stuff falling down... sort of like an old barn. :)

Ok, this is the other side of the barn. These guys haven't been let out yet. Can you see the calf that got loose and is trying to get to it's mother? That means more manure scattered in places it shouldn't be. The cows sometimes do the same thing.

This is Chip working. The first step is to shovel all the manure off of the floor and the mats into the 'drop'. The drop is directly under the cows rears and where all the manure should be.

Here's the other side of the barn. Same deal. Mats need to be straightened, manure needs to be shoveled and the mats need to be swept after the manure is shoveled.

This is the calf pen. Those are new calf stanchions that we put in a few years ago. They are cool because you only have to move one lever and it opens up all of them to let the calves out. The ones for the cows you need to open individually. I believe that's Van cleaning the cow pen. This floor is always really messy (and slippery) because on the left hand side of the picture is the door that all the cows exit out from. And they poop as they go of course.

This is a new calf. She is in the barn because it is too cold for her outside. She roams free. And calf's poop just like newborn babies. A yellow mustard color. This calf is only a few days old. And that's Anna too by the way. :)

Chip and his dad working on the calf pen.

Van cleaning off the mats of the calf pen

Anna sweeping the hay. We usually use silage (chopped up corn that we grow) but on the cold day prior, the machine must have been broken and Chip wasn't off the day before to climb in the silo and fix it. Hay is MUCH easier and lighter to sweep.

Ok, you can see the mats are swept now. All they hay that they didn't eat is swept through and used for bedding at the edge of the mats. You can see my mother in law sweeping the floor next.

This is the beloved barn cleaner and Van. This is my favorite job personally. I always like to do it and Chip told me his grandma did too. I think because once it is done, you feel like the barn is really clean. So this chain like thing is at the bottom of the drop. It goes all the way around the bottom of it sort of like a pulley would. It goes to the hole where we are standing and our job is to scrape the paddles clean to make sure it all goes in the hole. It takes about 15-20 minutes. You can see Van working on a dirty paddle and the one to his left is clean.

Now we are onto the other side of the barn. This is the old fashioned way of doing it and since this side isn't connected to the barn cleaner, they need to shovel it into a wheelbarrow and go dump it in the other hole. Can you see Anna right there helping?

This is Adam in the drop pushing it into the hole.

And here he is doing it again.

This picture shows the barn cleaner going around. It's a little foggy because it's cold in there. The left side of the drop is clean, the right side is still going. And fun little tidbit: All three of my kids have fallen into the drop multiple times and have been coated in manure.

Last step: grit. You can see Anna standing in front of a pile of sand basically. They take the grit in their shovels and spread it around on the floor so when the cows come back in, they don't fall. All the hay is pushed to the edge of the mats and we have a clean barn until tomorrow morning! At this point I bring the kids inside, strip them and wash clothes. Chip will take the tractor and manure spreader out and spread the manure and then go back into the barn and spread out the insilage or hay. The cows go back in the barn around dinner time.