No more feeding in the dark!!!

I have had a light at the peak of the barn since I started working on it several years ago.  However, I installed the feed bin for the pig feed a little over a year ago and never gave thought to the fact that it was always dark out there, until the one night when the neighbors security light was off.  Then it was extremely dark because the front light on the barn was burnt out as well!  I decided to add a light on the side where the feed bin is at but needed a new way to switch all the lights on and off for the original barn because once I filled it with hay I couldn't access the switch I installed when I first started remodeling it.

The answer ... put a new weather proof switch on the front of the barn.  Easily accessible while walking to the feed bin and easily accessible when headed into the barn because it is located on the corner of the barn between the man door and the feed bin.  

Next step is to reside the barn and put new windows in it where needed.  The existing siding is tongue and groove  boards and has seen many better days.  Not to mention Red Balls, the Boar, ripped a bunch of the siding off the west end of the barn one day while grumpy because he couldn't get to his women when he wanted to!

Another addition, all though temporary, was to add a light to the south end of the barn to light up the cow shed area.  Once I get a roof on the shed portion I will add another row of lights to light it all up and move the temporary light to the southernmost portion of the barn to light up the rest of the corral / feeding area.  I took the picture with the light behind one of the pole so you can see what it is lighting up.  I only had one of two bulbs installed in the fixture for the picture since one of them was broken when I removed it from the package.

There are some other wiring items you cannot see in the pictures.  First of all, when I installed the pig waterer a couple of years ago I installed water and electric lines from the house to the waterer.  I also installed a conduit from the pig waterer to the barn to tie it in at a later date.  Today was that later date!  I have a 20 amp circuit that I have been feeding all the electric to the barn with since I started this project.  When I just had lights this was not a problem.  However, with the addition of fans and the feed bin I was pushing my luck.  Every time I would turn on the feed bin the lights would dim.  I have another 20 amp circuit running from the house to the pig waterer.  Today I tied that circuit into the barn and split the wiring in the barn into two sections.  The old barn and feed bin are still on the original circuit from the garage.  The pig shed and cow shed are both now running on the circuit that feeds the pig waterer.

There are two bonuses to the having the pig and cow sheds tied into that circuit is the breaker that monitors that line is a GFIC breaker.  Because it is directly connected to the waterer, which in turn is tied into the water of our house, I wanted it protected against any electrical fault.  It takes very little electric to actual kill an animal or human and this protects that from happening.  The other bonus is that if the shed lights do not turn on I know the breaker tripped.  This would have been helpful earlier this winter when the breaker tripped and the pig waterer froze up because the heater was not working.

Another thing you cannot tell in the pictures is that I have converted all but two lights over to Florescent bulbs from standard incandescent.  This allows me to have room to safely run the heat lamps in the winter for the babies and to run the fans in the summer to cool the barn without having to worry about over loading the system.  It also saves energy and money!  I will convert over one of the two remaining bulbs once I get back to the store.  The final one will not be done for a while because it is a big flood light that I put on the backside of the barn and it lights up a huge area.  I will most likely move it to the south side of the cow shed when I get the roof completed and put the temporary lights I have there now in its place on the west side because I need light more on the south side.  Eventually, down the road a few years, I plan to build a shop down by the barn to keep the tractor in and to work on equipment.  When I do this I will run a new power supply to the new shop and feed the barn off of that supply so I can add a couple of huge floods to light up the pasture around the barn for emergency use if needed.  Plus it would be nice to have the light if I need to load animals at night or when I am wrapping hay in the spring and summer!

Herd check in the morning and I am exhausted.  Plus I need to get up early to feed the cows and pen them in before the vet gets here so I am going to bed early tonight.  Hope it doesn't snow and mess everything up by me having to go to work!

Talk to you tomorrow everyone!

Kenny