Barn Facts for Kids

A barn

A barn is an important building often seen on a farm. Farmers use barns for many different things. They can be a safe home for livestock like horses, cows, or sheep. Barns also store important things like grain (which is food for animals or people) and farm tools or machines.

What is a Barn For?
- Keeping Animals Safe
- Storing Crops and Supplies
Different Kinds of Barns
- Building Materials
- Barn Styles Around the World
History of Barns
Images for kids
See also

What is a Barn For?

Barns are super useful buildings on a farm. They help farmers keep their animals safe and warm, especially during bad weather. They also protect valuable crops and equipment from the rain, snow, and sun.

Keeping Animals Safe

Many barns are built to house farm animals. This means animals like cows, horses, pigs, and chickens can live inside. Barns give them shelter from cold winters or hot summers. They also protect animals from predators. Inside, barns often have stalls or pens where each animal can have its own space.

Storing Crops and Supplies

Barns are also perfect for storing crops after they are harvested. This could be hay for animals to eat, or grains like corn and wheat. Keeping crops dry and safe in a barn helps them last longer. Farmers also store their tractors, plows, and other tools in barns to keep them in good condition.

Different Kinds of Barns

Over time, people have built many different types of barns. The way a barn looks often depends on what it's used for and where it is in the world.

Building Materials

Barns are built using many different materials. In some places, barns are made mostly of wood, like big timber frames. Others might use stone or brick, especially in areas where these materials are common. Some modern barns use metal siding. The materials chosen often depend on what is available nearby and what works best for the local weather.

Barn Styles Around the World

You can see many unique barn styles if you travel! For example, some old barns in Europe have half-timbered walls, which means they use a wooden frame with other materials like brick or stone filling the spaces. In some parts of the United States, you might see round barns, which were thought to be more efficient. In Asia, some traditional barns are built specifically for storing rice. Each style is designed to fit the needs of the farmers and the local environment.

History of Barns

Barns have been around for a very long time, helping farmers for centuries. Early barns were often simple structures, sometimes just a roof supported by posts. As farming methods changed, so did barns. For example, when farmers started using more machines, barns became larger to hold bigger equipment. Today, barns are still a vital part of farming all over the world.

Images for kids

Timber framed with siding of vertical boards was typical in early New England. Red is a traditional color for paint.
The Texas Technological College Dairy Barn in Lubbock, Texas, U.S., was used as a teaching facility until 1967.
Russian women using a hand powered winnowing machine in a threshing barn. Note the board across the doorway to prevent grain from spilling out of the barn, this is the origin of the term threshold. Painting from 1894 by Klavdy Lebedev titled the floor or the threshing floor (Гумно).
Grange Barn, Coggeshall, England, originally part of the Cistercian monastery of Coggeshall. Dendrochronologically dated from 1237 to 1269, it was restored in the 1980s by the Coggeshall Grange Barn Trust, Braintree District Council and Essex County Council.
A bridge barn in Switzerland. The bridge (rather than a ramp) in this case also shelters animals.
The skeleton of a post and beam horse barn just after raising
Thomas Ranck Round Barn in Fayette County, Indiana, U.S.
A barn in southern Ontario, Canada
A barn of the Uster castle in the city of Uster, Switzerland
This barn in Thuringia, Germany has two outshots forming the recess to the middle barn doors.
Barns and silo in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada. These structures were torn down in March 2009.
Traditional Sasak rice barn in village of Sade, Lombok, Indonesia.
In Germany, due to the risk of fire, some hay barns were located in areas apart from houses in the inner town or village. These areas were called a Scheunenviertel, which translates as "barn quarter", from "Scheune", the German word for barn. This barn quarter is in Steinhude, Germany
The barn at Bjärka-Säby Castle, Sweden, around 1909.
Half-timbered barn with brick infill. Uetersen, Germany. This barn's proportions resemble a Low German house.
Half-timbered with wattle-work walls for ventilation. Stryd Lydan Barn, originally at Llannerch Banna, Flintshire, North Wales. Re-erected at the St Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff, Wales in 1951.
Wattle work walls in a sheep barn in Ruurlo, Netherlands.
Half-timbered barn walls with stone infill. Rödinghausen, Germany.
A barn in Orajärvi village of Sodankylä, Lapland, Finland.
Old hay barn at the end of Suitsu hiking trail at the Matsalu National Park in Pärnu County, Estonia.
A barn (ovin) in the museum-estate of Surikov. Krasnoyarsk, Russia.
A barn (ovin) from Vakhonkino village, Kaduysky raion, Vologda oblast, Russia. Vitoslavlitsy museum, Veliky Novgorod.
Half-timbered wall with wattle and daub infill. Some of the plaster coating survives. Rödinghausen, Germany.
A rare half-timbered barn with board infill in Syke, Lower Saxony, Germany.
Grange barn, Coggeshall, England. This is a studded barn so the wall sheathing must be applied horizontally and covered with a siding material in this case clapboards (weatherboards).
A type of barn in Metylovice, Czech Republic with stone piers and an infill of horizontal timbers.
Board-on-board siding and half timber-framed barn in Olsztynek, north Poland
Timber framed with the sheathing covered in clapboards. New Hampshire, U.S.A.
Rare walls of boards and thatch. Drenthe, Netherlands
Gable end of a brick barn with ventilation holes built into the brickwork.
19th-century fieldstone barn near Rockwood, Ontario, Canada.
Limestone walls in the Oak Hall Historic District, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Stone barns are common in parts of the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France, and some Mediterranean countries. The projecting stones (which are a type of wall tie) are a style in the Yorkshire Dales, England.
Abidiah Taylor Barn Chester County, Pennsylvania. Part of the Taylor-Cope Historic District. Built in either 1724 (date stone) or 1744 (wooden beam investigation), it is one of the oldest extant barns in the United States. Field stone walls.
The combination of brick quoins with flint walls is common in (mostly older) buildings in this area of the Chilterns, Oxfordshire, England.
A rare wall material is Cob which is similar to adobe. Devon, England.
Round log barn in the skansen (open-air museum) in Sanok, Poland
Hewn log barn painted red in Hedemora, Sweden.
No walls are a characteristic of what in the United Kingdom is called a Dutch barn.
Corrugated metal siding