Do Your Pets & Livestock Have Adequate Shelter During The Coldest Part Of Winter?

@4meAndyou with winds chills forecast to be lower than -20F. I have to wonder if even a barn will be warm enough if there isn’t a heat source, especially for the calves. Yeah cows have survived for hundreds of years, but bison can survive a blizzard.

@4meAndyou just being in the barn isnt enough. Need to be covered withcoarse jute or thick cotton fluff to protect from howling winds

@KA9ha Most barns have some sort of safe heating method farmers can use in a pinch, too.

@4meAndyou they need an outdoor wood-burning furnace to blow warm air inside of it. I have seen those on homes up north. My uncle told me that some of the farms in the northern states had tunnels from the house to the barn so the farmer’s didn’t have to wade through snow to milk the cows. He got pneumonia when I was 5 years old after we had a blizzard with several feet of snow. The animals still have to be taken care of regardless of the weather.

@cherokeepatti Some barns have clay pipes under small "benches" built around the edges. The clay pipes heat up with an external fire.

@4meAndyou I’ve seen rocket stove systems in houses like that, they have a duct going from the stove and build benches around them and them put clay or whatever over the bench to create a radiant heat system. That’d be a dream home for me.

@cherokeepatti we use a straw/hay bedding for the cows which provides warm bedding ... warm water is fed for drinking and heating ... a stove in the corner of the barn, burns up the dried cowdung+ stray woodchip cakes ,provides warming the barn as well as hot water thru HDPE pipes to my bathroom.