Site Design: Part 2 of 12

Continuing on the theme of creating an ideal ranch, Site Design is part two of the twelve part series. Be sure to read my first blog post to understand the main philosophies and set your foundation for your property about getting your ducks in a row.

So often you’re starting with an existing property and some infrastructure in place and you need to create a master plan for adding to it and/ or changing some things. Instead of tackling each piece disparately, think of it more holistically first, then break the work into reasonable chunks. You can order those projects by whatever method makes the most sense to you. Maybe you want to prioritize anything to do with safety, or you have to stay within a budget, so cost is going to drive a lot of those decisions. Maybe, you have external deadlines, like you know you have to move animals in by a certain date when your land lease is up. Whatever you choose, be sure to refer back to that prioritization method because it will help ensure you’re doing the right projects first. In any case, you’ll want to have some sort of master plan for your site design. Here’s how to do exactly that.

Step 1: Consider all the critters your farm will house immediately, and in the future. Write them down with approximate counts of animals such as shown in the image to the right. This outline forms the basis for how many enclosures, barns, etc that you might need. In this example, maybe the future lambs, goats and mini donkeys have similar enough needs that they can live together. Maybe the steers will just be seasonal, so they don’t need a barn.

Step 2: Consider all the people who will visit, live or work on your farm. Write down those groups such as family, ranch hand, horse trainer, horse boarders, maybe you will host community groups, etc. This list starts to frame up the requirements you have around building infrastructure: will you need to provide bathroom resources? How about parking? A break room/kitchenette? What other special needs might that group of people have? If you have a horse trainer, do they need a round pen? Or maybe they will want a trail / obstacle course? Write down those needs as well.

Step 3: Once you know the animals and people that will use or live on your farm, consider all the maintenance and chores that must be done to support those things. You will use this list to plan out locations to house all of these things, too.

How will you do poo duty? If by hand, then you need the poo pile close enough to get to easily. Where will you store the wheelbarrow and manure forks?

Where will you park any equipment? Farm implements parked in pastures can be dangerous. Yes, storing equipment inside a barn is great, but may not be a realistic immediate expense.

Where will you store the hay? If you store it outside, you will need tarps and you can expect some loss due to rain or mold. If you store it inside, you need to consider fire danger. If it is in a distant barn, fire danger is mitigated, but how many times a day or week you’re going to need to access it? No one wants to drive to the back 40 twice a day to get a couple of small bales of hay to feed in the AM and then again in the PM. Maybe you store your weekly allotment closer to the main barn and just feed it out with a wheelbarrow.

You’ll also notice that by going through that thought process, I left off other important equipment off my list: tarps, truck to haul hay, wheelbarrow, etc. The stuff you need to support your chores will take up more space than you think, so it’s worth the thought when planning a site layout.

Now that you know what animals, which people and what stuff you need, I want to share two actual design models: the concentric circles approach and the spoke and wheel model. Either approach will work depending on your goals, priorities and site. Before we dig into those two models, I want to mention some important things to remember which are specific to your location and must be considered: drainage, prevailing winds, access, barns and fencing.

Drainage - don’t fight the natural drainage. Yes, excavators and dozers can re-route huge amounts of dirt, but remember the number one rule is to follow God’s law. Part of God’s law is that water runs downhill. Water has already created pathways and they can be hard to re-route. Consider staying within natural drainage lines.

Prevailing winds - from which direction do the winds come? How do other ranches have their sheds opening? South-facing is typical, but pay attention to how other local farms have oriented their structures.

Access - How will you access the farm in inclement weather? Do you get big snow drifts? Is the main entrance of your barn on the north side? Will you be fighting ice all winter long? Also, consider access to amenities. When planning where to build your outdoor arena, some farms prefer to have a nice long warm-up walk to the arena. Others are training colts and need the arena or round pen close at hand so the horse doesn’t lose its mind on the way to the fenced area.

Barns - always build bigger than you think you’ll need. Literally, no one has ever said “I built that barn too big”. Go as big as you can and consider a future expansion if needed.

Fencing - always buy the biggest and heaviest you can afford. Pipe is better than wood is better than wire. Bull sized pipe gates are best. Don’t forget the last rule of Getting your Ducks in a Row: don’t paint yourself in a corner. If you’re not confident about fence placement, start with something temporary.

Finally, we can get to the fun stuff… the actual site design models: concentric circle model or spoke and wheel model:
The Concentric Circle Model is the idea that site design should be focused on the smallest animals and the most frequent chores being kept closest to the center. The larger animals and /or those that need less frequent care can be on the outer perimeter. Maybe you build your chicken coop right next to the house, the lamb and goat pen beside the chickens, and on the path to the horse barn. In this way, the smaller animals are easily viewed and their chores can be done on the way to feed the horses. The horse barn should be relatively close, too, because you’re going to spend a fair amount of time doing feeding chores and poo duty. Maybe you plan on other horses which live in the pasture full time on the “far” side of the barn. And then furthest from everything, are the steers because they just need their water checked every couple of days.

The Spoke and wheel model is somewhat similar, but focuses more on ease of turnout and access to amenities. In this case all the animals are primarily, centrally located toward the spoke of the wheel. They come in to one central barn or in close proximity for feed and water, but then they have access to pasture or turnout that moves further away from the center of the wheel along a spoke. You can use this same approach for amenities, keep your parking and bathroom facilities centrally located. This also works for horse amenities. Round pens tend to be accessed by foot, so keep that close in, beyond that could be the arena and then further out is the obstacle course because you’re probably going to get to the trail course on horseback, not on foot. If you leave one of the spokes unfenced, then you would have an entire area which is easily ridden without having to pass through any gates.

I hope you find this blog to be helpful, stay tuned for other posts about farm life like: Simplifying Feeding, Poo Duty, Harmonious Horses, Weed and Management, and others…