Do you have a school barn?

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katie_k

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Joined
Jun 14, 2010
Messages
316
Location
Shell Lake WI
i was just wondering who on here has or had a school barn when they were in high school that was on the grounds for ffa members and ag classes to use to raise animals and teach and learn. can you tell me more about them and what they have to offer. im trying to get my school to support building one. picstures of ideal barns and equipment would be awsome! thanks for all the help!  pictures are reallly desired. 
 

CPL

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Joined
Jun 15, 2007
Messages
608
... I wish! There is a school not far from ours that has a barn just behind the High School with turn-out lots and everything for the kids' projects. To me that would be awesome.
 

PaFFA Proud

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Joined
Oct 28, 2010
Messages
390
Location
Pennsylvania
My schools ag dept wants to put one in...they have the land but the dang school supports their losing band and atheletics to use it as a PRACTICE field which they never loose. Our FFA brings home tons of state and national awards and donates a load of money to scolarships and community projects
 

showqueen95

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Joined
Oct 31, 2010
Messages
98
Location
Texas
My school has a ag barn. I never inside of it but it has a fenced  out lot u can turn ur animals into.  A lot kids use cause they live in town its great. i really push for one too. <rock>
 

fordkindagirl

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Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Messages
179
Location
Cypress,TX
My school district does! Well we have 3. Our district is one of the richer districts and they put a lot of money into our ag stuff. Each barn has 20 steer pens, 180 lamb/goat/hog pens, 2 wash racks (steer one &  lamb/goat/hog one) 4 feed rooms with cabinets, misting system, automatic waterers,  a squeeze chute, steer scale, 2 hog/lamb/goat/hog scales, 4 pastures, 2 runs, place where you dump shavings/manure (they take it away with a front loader), automatic front gates (with a code), and it's all concrete. Each barn cost about 3 mil to build.

Also- they provide wheelbarrows, manure forks, shovels, brooms, etc. And there are 14 security cameras in each barn.
I'll post pictures tomorrow.
 

Okotoks

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Aug 17, 2010
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3,083
Who knew!
Great idea, never heard of anything like this before the college level!
 

DLD

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Joined
Apr 15, 2007
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1,539
Location
sw Oklahoma
It's pretty common here in Oklahoma.  I'd say that most schools here with an ag program have some sort of facility available for students to keep their show projects.  Don't know of many on the scale fordkindagirl describes, but some are very nice - several I know of have cool rooms for the students use. 
 

fed_champions

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Joined
Mar 2, 2010
Messages
400
We had a school barn built my sophmore year. Its a 100 by 200 freestanding structure with 20, 40' by 20' pens. a 20' alley in the middle, a wash rack, a feed room, and a clip room. Turn out pens in the back, and all the chutes needed. we also had a 28' by 8' alluminum trailer that belongs to the school. All the parents and kids from the ffa chapter built the pens and did all thhe metal work inside, it was a huge group project. Before that, i kept my calves in an old barn on one of our leased properties, it wasn't near as nice as the new school barn was though, even though we had a cool room there.
 

cowgirl864

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Joined
Feb 13, 2010
Messages
851
Location
Saluda, S.C.
we have a school barn, its a free standing pole barn that we use panels to change configerations, we also own two trailers, a enclosed supply trailer, generator, fifty acres of pasture & cut all our own hay we are pretty well self contained. i believe we have the best set up in the state!
 

BCCC

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Jan 6, 2008
Messages
2,087
Location
Hillsboro, TX
We have a 60x80 barn, with a 20 foot lean to. We aren't allowed to put pens inside for any animals. You're lucky is there is one run open for show calves, as the ffa advisor uses all the rest, along with all the big pens and pasture for his cattle. All the hogs stay outside, and every year, the ffa hogs that stay at the farm are some of the worse at the county fair. So long story short, we have a barn....and it's worthless.
 

kobo_ranch

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Joined
Aug 30, 2008
Messages
484
Location
TEXAS
We don't but would be nice for the town kids that don't live in the country.  Also really good idea for the urban city kids.  A fellow steer planet young lady on here that I have became very close to lives in San Antonio and think they have one.  She loves agriculture and if not for that she would have never been able to experience it.  I think if they can spend tons on sports they can on agriculture for the ones who want to learn it.
 

SKF

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Joined
Apr 24, 2007
Messages
1,057
My daughters high school has an Ag barn that kids can keep their project animals at but there's so many rules that very few use it. My daughter wanted to keep her pig there but it was not worth it.
 

CM Cattle

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Joined
Sep 28, 2008
Messages
794
Location
Central Kentucky
Our county has recentally built a new high school, and along with it we were given 80 akers to our ffa. So gar we have got a grant to build a fence all around the farm, and for a lot of new equipment. Were working on getting a grant to build a grant in the upcoming year. We have talked about building a place to have less fortunate members who have no place to keep a project animal keep it on the farm. This is a big step up from last years Ag dept. We went from having a run down shop and little tools and equipment to having a farm and all new stuff.
 
Joined
Sep 12, 2010
Messages
16
Location
middletown, california
my high school's ag dept has 3 barn one for breeding sheep and goats another one that is attached to the sheep and goat barn in cattle barn and then the show barn for pigs, sheep, goats, and turkeys
and 5 pastures for the steers and the breeding sheep and goats and also swine pens that is currently used for goats  and the fair equipment cargo box
 

Bradenh

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Joined
Jan 10, 2010
Messages
2,646
Location
Central Texas
ford kina girl u should definatly post pics. yalls barn is state of the art and ive heard alot about it. ours is just a shed with some hog and steer pens that looks like a dump. even though i never ever go in it
 

firesweepranch

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Joined
Jun 17, 2010
Messages
1,685
Location
SW MO
I taught high school ag for 9 years before I became a college teacher, and 7 of those years were in California. MOST schools have a farm. It is a must when you have large populations with little to no property to house SAE's on. Of my 7 years, I was at two different schools. One had 9 acres and the other had 5. Both had top quality hog barns on concrete, a lamb barn and pens for steers. The first school had a facility that was over 30 years old, but well kept. It was the smaller one, so I would not allow breeding animals (not enough room). In my second school, we had an awesome setup; the FFA owned 10 breeding ewes (all past champions purchased by a local supporter who farmed for Dole so had lots of money to help) and 4 to 5 breeding sows (same story). I AI'd the pigs to the top sires, and our FFA was just about unbeatable. We would rent a ram for the sheep from a local show lamb breeder, so our lambs were pretty good also. The chapter sold the pigs/lambs to FFA members first at a discount rate (and the student that took care of the animal got pick of the litter for pigs for free, and pick of the flock for the lambs for free), then sold the leftovers to the 4-H club that we allowed to share our farm. It was a really great set up. 95% of my students WOULD NOT have been able to have an animal SAE without our high school farm, and the students took ownership of taking care of it so it was nice. Yes, there were a lot of rules (feed by such and such time in the morning and such and such time in the evening, students must care for their own projects - not the parents, farm clean up days, showmanship practice weekly, weigh in weekly,clean your pen daily, etc.) but the rules were in place to keep everyone honest and on track. You would not believe how many PARENTS would feed the animals on weekends WITHOUT the child there! A big NO NO in my book! I put a stop to that real quick  ;)
I think the biggest shock I had when I moved to Missouri was finding out that schools DID NOT have farms  :eek:
 

fordkindagirl

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Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Messages
179
Location
Cypress,TX
Sorry yall, been meaning to post pictures but the cameras acting up! I will try another and hopefully will get some posted tomorrow evening.
 

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