The ground floor is concrete throughout. A walk five feet wide extends along each side and cross walks three feet wide are between each row of stalls at both front and rear, one for breeding and the other for the cows and the milkers. A shallow gutter, eighteen inches wide by six inches deep, extends along the rear of the stalls to receive the droppings and urine, which is removed twice a day and drawn at once to the fields or heaped for tramping over and rotting under wide-roofed sheds. The calving stalls, four at each end of this floor, are eight by seven and three quarters feet in size, and one or two of them can be occupied by bulls, if desired.
The watering system may be either a wooden gutter extending along the front of each row of stalls or a cast-iron semicircular pan set between each pair of stalls so as to supply a cow on either side. Whether troughs or pans are used there should be an automatic cock and tank, which keeps the water always at the desired level, and check valves which prevent the water once in the trough or basin returning to the pipe and contaminating others.
Fig. 43—Cross-section showing truss-frame plan.
All the food is stored on the main floor, whence convenient chutes convey it to feeding troughs or push-carts on the walks below. The ensilage from the silo is loaded directly into the push-carts just outside the door, or could be chuted to the walk inside. The soiling crops fed in summer are cut up on the main floor and sent down to the waiting push-carts in the walks below. The roof and sides of this barn are covered with Paroid roofing.
Fig. 44—Ground floor plan of basement story.
Fig. 45—Floor plan of main floor.
The tying arrangement may be either chains, straps, or swing stanchions as desired, and all three methods are in use on up-to-date dairy barns. The stock kept may have an influence upon the length of the stalls; those given are seven and one half feet long by three feet three inches wide.