The smaller surface on the outside wall of the round barn requires less paint and makes a proportional saving in keeping the round barn painted in after years.
Round and Rectangular Barns, Including Silos, Compared
Owing to the fact that a silo is a necessity for the most economical production of milk, a barn is not complete for a dairyman's purpose unless it includes a silo with capacity to store sufficient silage for the herd. In the case of the round barn, the silo is most economically built inside, but in the rectangular form would cause a waste of space, and for that reason is best erected outside. Therefore, in comparing a round dairy barn with a rectangular dairy barn, silos should be included.
In figuring the cost of materials in the silos for the round and rectangular barns, the capacity needed in each case was determined in the following manner: Allowing 40 pounds of silage per cow per day for 7 winter months and 25 pounds per cow per day for 3 months during the summer, would require for 40 cows 220 tons; then allowing one-eighth for waste would make the silage requirement 248 tons. As the silo in the round barn 60 feet in diameter is 53 feet deep, it would need to be only 16 feet in diameter to hold 250 tons. This diameter is sufficiently small to allow summer feeding without waste. To erect a silo outside of a barn, with sufficient stability to stand well, the height above ground should not be much more than twice the diameter, and in order to avoid waste for summer feeding, the diameter should not be greater than 16 feet for a herd of 40 cows. In order that a deep enough layer of silage can be fed off each day during the summer to avoid waste, it is evident that to store 250 tons of silage outside the barn, two silos would be required. One of these should be 16 feet in diameter and 36 feet deep, holding 154 tons, and the other 13 feet in diameter and 36 feet deep, holding 102 tons, making a total silo capacity of 256 tons.
As the large barns hold 100 cows, the same allowance of silage per cow for the season would require silo capacity for 620 tons. As the silo in the round barn 90 feet in diameter would be 71 feet deep, it would need to be only 20 feet in diameter to hold 620 tons. To store 620 tons of silage in silos built outside the rectangular barn would require two silos, each 20 feet in diameter and 44 feet deep.[B] These are the sizes on which the figures for cost of silos of the Gurler type, given in [Tables 2A] and [2B], were used.
Fig. 10. Interior of cow stable, showing water trough with float valve, salt box, and door into dairy.
The table ([page 12]) is the final summing up of the cost of all the material for the completed dairy barns, with silos, and shows a saving of from 34 to 58 percent in favor of the round barn and silo, or an actual money saving in this case of from $379 to $1184, depending upon the size and construction of the barns.
Thoughtlessly, men go on building rectangular barns, but what would this reckless disregard of a possible saving of 34 to 58 percent mean in a year's business on the farm? Some illustrations may help us to understand what this money saved in building a round barn really amounts to, and its convenience is also a great saving. If the dairyman discarded the idea of a rectangular barn and built a round barn instead, he could take the money thus saved and buy one of the best pure-bred sires for his herd, and also three to ten pure-bred heifers or fine grade cows. Either of these purchases might double the profit of the herd. Or, this saving, properly applied, would purchase many labor-saving devices which would make life less of a drudgery on many dairy farms. Is not such a saving worth while?
