I need help designing a hay shed

[EddieWalker]

I'm in the early stages of planning a shed to store hay in. My main reason to bring it up now is to clear the land for it and cut the pad with drainage.

I won't be needing large quantities and would prefer to keep storage to a minimum.

How high should it be?
Is three walls suffecient?
Is a loafing shed design acceptable?
I've seen space left under the walls on a few hay storage buildings. Why was this done?
Which works better, small square bales or the large round ones?

My daily requirements in the winter will be from one to two small square bales. The rest of the year, I doubt I'll need any hay at all.

I'm totally ignorant on these requirements and don't even know enough to ask the right questions, so please volunteer anything that I should know.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[cowboydoc]

The most important thing is to keep the hay dry and off the ground. 2 bales per day for even say 180 days is only 360 bales so let's figure 400 bales. I can store 600 bales in the loft above my stalls which is 80x15x6.

To figure out how big you need you need to know the size of your bales. Once you figure out the size of your bales just figure how big you need. You can just do a dirt floor and put pallets on the ground. That will keep the hay up off of the ground.

Depending on how much rain you get will determine if a three sided loafing shed is ok. When it rains hard our loafing sheds get wet about 4' in. Personally I would enclose it. The reason for the sides up a little is to allow ventilation. the ventilation is important so the hay won't mold and worse yet combust. I would also put vents in the ceiling.

It can really be a pretty simple design. With your limited needs I wouldn't even mess with round bales. Square bales will be fine.

 

[slowzuki]

If slab put in vapor barrier. If gravel put down heavy plastic. Both, pile hay on pallets so the condensation against the cold floor doesn't wet your hay.

 

[Robert_in_NY]

I agree with the others, use pallets or build a wood floor to allow air under the hay. As long as you keep the rain off the hay, and air around it you should have no problems (excpet for animals wanting to move in if your shed is not closed up well).

 

[kensfarm]

"use pallets or build a wood floor to allow air under the hay."

Old bank barns were designed for square bales & air flow.. though you don't need anything that big.. thought it might be interesting to show a couple pictures.

 

[kensfarm]

Another..

 

[slowzuki]

Thats a beaut of a barn. If it is like the barns here, they would have put all the siding up tight and green off the sawmill and let teh drying shrinkage create the air gaps.

 

[kensfarm]

Thankyou.. and yep.. green oak boards.. I think a couple "way up high" boards will need replacing soon. The pictures are from when I first moved on the farm.. now 1/3 of the barn is filled w/ alfalfa hay & straw.. hay equipment in the middle.. and 10 tons of ground corn in 100lb bags everywhere. I feed out over a ton of grain every week for the steers.. so at least I'm getting a little walking room now.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the advise so far. The pallets are something I have plenty of, and also something I didn't think of.

My initial plans are for one wall 40 feet long and two side walls 12 feet long and a singe sloped roof starting at 8 feet at the back and around 10 feet at the front.

 

[Argee]

Be sure to keep the open side facing east to southeast. +95% of all weather comes from the west to southwest.