The Round Barns of Western Wisconsin
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- Dan_Ellsworth
- phoehne
- phoehne
- H2O
- Red
- phoehne
- jerrib
- phoehne
- jerrib
- phoehne
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» Dan_Ellsworth - Someday when camped nearby
Maybe not this summer, but sometime I can see Judy and me camping in the area and taking whimsical day trips to round barns. Nice article.-- posted by Dan_Ellsworth
» phoehne - Re: Someday when camped nearby
In response to message posted by Dan_Ellsworth:Dan,
Vernon County and the surrounding area is a very beautiful area of Wisconsin and well worth the visit. The round barns just make it even more interesting. Most of the area is Norwegian and there is a large Amish community there now.
-- posted by phoehne
» H2O - Why not?
They went out of style when mechanized machinery became more common. A rectangular barn was a better fit for machinery. When loose hay began to be replaced by square bales a squared off hay mow was needed to store them. Barn cleaners and pipeline milking systems did not fit into the round barn.Mechanized machinery could very easily be adapted to round barns. In fact, barn cleaners would need less chainage in a round barn than in a rectangular barn. And with large round bales of hay becoming more prevalent, I can see a return to the round barn. It also wouldn't take much to adapt silage fillers to adapt to a round barn--and keep the silage from freezing! Is anyone in Wisconsin, such as the University, designing a "21st. Century Round Barn?" I think the concept could work.
BTW, my dad spent a large chunk of his engineering career designing farm equipment, including silo loaders and unloaders and liquid 'nure (or "honey") systems, and barn cleaners.
john
-- posted by H2O
» phoehne - Re: Why not?
In response to message posted by H2O:John, I'm sure with the technology we have today the milking sustems and barn cleaning systems could be made to work in the round barns. I'm not so sure they could in the early part of the 20th century.
There would still be the problem of expansion. You can't add on to a round barn like you can a rectangular one. Off course if you were to go to a milking parlor you wouldn't need the barn itself to be any bigger, You could always build a shed in conjunction with the barn for the additional number of cows.
I have no idea if anyone is looking at round barns for the future. It is subject it might be fun to look into.
-- posted by phoehne
» phoehne - Re: I have never seen a round barn
In response to message posted by jerrib:My husband buys cattle. He took me with him onetime when he was going to a farm that had one of these old round barns. I got to go inside and look it all over.
It really was wonderfully compact and efficient for its original purpose. It is a shame there aren't more of them left, but I understand they are expensive to repair.
-- posted by phoehne
» jerrib - Re: Re: I have never seen a round barn
In response to message posted by phoehne:Bet it was interesting. We do have some "dome" homes in our state, but now I'll have to keep my eye out for a round barn. Don't think there are any in Washington.
I'm back to edit this - I found a list of round barns in Washington State - 15 to be exact! Now I have some research to do!
-- posted by jerrib
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