My husband and I built a small barn for my goats and sheep 2 years ago. Up until that point, the largest thing we'd ever built was a small chicken coop for 6 hens, so this 16x16 barn was a major undertaking! I put temporary windows in, planning on replacing them with something more flexible later. It is now "later". Here's my debate. The girls (and their offspring) have a large paddock that they have free run of during the day, then are shut in the barn at night. The barn is wide open during the day. The bugs go in. The bugs go out. The mosquitos from our fine Maine swamp-land will be wending their whining way into my life in short order here. I'm planning on making plexi-glass windows that can be removed. Should I put some type of screening over the windows also? The mosquitoes are quite unbearable at night. I could just close the windows at night, I suppose, but the little heatwave we just had makes that seem unbearable for August. As you can see, I am even debating with myself here! I think I'm in need of some other opinions! What are your barn windows like? I am particularly interested in hearing from anyone else who lives where the biting bugs thrive! Oh, and while you're at it, can anyone recommend a good method to keep a very fidgety first-time milker from kicking at the mosquitoes and blackflies (and, subsequently, me) while being milked? I was thinking of wiping down her legs with a mild bug repellant, but I'd be afraid I'd end up with bug repellant in my milk.

-- Sheryl Adams (radams@sacoriver.net), May 05, 2001

Answers

Response to barn windows, mosquitoes and milking

I assume your looking for inexpensive as possible. Sounds like I would make the window from screening,, and use the plexiglass as a "storm window", to put in during cold weather and such

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), May 06, 2001.

We have "windows" on our barn also, though just to batten down during hurricanes and really awful weather. In the south so even during our worst winters I don't close them unless we have a north wind. How about instead of solid windows which will decrease the airflow in your barn, something very unhealthy for your goats, you simply make frames as big as your window opening. Cover it in screen or the shade cloth the hardware, Homedepot type stores carry. Bugs can't get through, it shades, but air can still get in and out. My windows in the barn start up at 5 foot, so even my tallest does could get to them, if yours are shorter you will have to think of something to keep them from eating or hanging a leg. My window closings are really just sheets of plywood that stay up in an open position with "legs" closed they lock down into place making it seem as that my barn has solid walls all the way up. Are you locking your does in at night because of preditors?

I use bronco fly spray, sold at most feed stores and in Jeffers Equine. Benign all-be-it temporary solution, there is another thread about this yesterday. I have a shop fan blowing at me and the girls while they are being milked, it is very powerful and the flies simply can't lite. Good luck with this! Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), May 06, 2001.

Sheryl - as Vicky already mentioned, a box fan works best, even if you set it on very low. I live in South Central Texas, lots of bugs, and lots of heat. My windows used to have screens, but when they wore out I never replaced. The windows stay wide open all spring/summer/fall long, and most of the winter. At the end of my long, wooden, home-built milkstand I have a simple box fan that I turn on at milking time. The flying insects don't like the moving air that blows onto the goat and myself. Hope this helps. Karin

-- karin macaulay (kmacaulay@co.brazos.tx.us), May 07, 2001.

Try apple cider vinegar in their drinking water. Seems to make the livestock less "attractive " to biting insects. Plus it adds necessary B vitamins! Works for me and I'm in Maine, also.

-- Marcia (HrMr@webtv.net), May 07, 2001.

I strew mint in my barn. As long as I do this every few days, I never see any bugs.

-- Connie (Connie@lunehaven.com), May 16, 2001.