When we built the donkey barn two years ago, we were novice barn builders. After much consideration, we selected the plan that we thought best fit our needs and chose the optimal spot in the far paddock. From there, Ian built me a new barn to house Charlie and the sheep.
I must say that our barn works swimmingly in dry weather - it is absolutely perfect. In wet weather; however, it is another story.
First, we encountered the barn floor flooding during fall and winter rain storms leaving Charlie and the sheep ankle deep in ice water. I seem to have fixed that problem by adding a heap of drainage gravel to the floor. This winter everyone's hooves have stayed warm and dry.
Our second issue is that with the roof-door configuration that we chose, during heavy rain storms the water pours off of the roof directly in front of the door so anyone (animal or human) coming into or out of the barn gets drenched in the process. This issue becomes even more annoying when the rain turns to slush or when the snow on the barn roof melts because as the slush slides off the roof it falls into a very inconveniently located pile directly in front of the barn door. If you do not shove this pile away before it freezes, you can no longer open or close the barn door. This is a massive pain in the butt.
Luckily, Ian devised a solution to our barn roof water problems. He installed an eaves trough on the door side of the barn. Even better, he directed the run off into the animals' water bucket. Catching this water will help keep their bucket full of clean drinking water between fills ups.
Hopefully this is the end of problems with the donkey barn but as with all things "farm", it is almost impossible to anticipate what weird and wonderful problem you are going to run up against next. Thank goodness we are good problem solvers who do not mind a bit of hard work!
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