Calving Barns
A calving barn can be simple and inexpensive, or very elaborate. An expensive, elaborate barn is not necessarily better than a simple shed. The most important things in a calving barn are location, drainage and ventilation–factors that play a role in health issues for cattle. You need to provide drainage away from the building on at least a 1 to 6 slope and good ventilation to prevent respiratory problems.
Location is important, especially when planning a new structure when you can decide where to put it. If you are working with a building that’s already in place, you may be hindered by less than ideal circumstances. It’s best if you can situate the barn in a somewhat protected area, out of the main wind currents. It’s important to build on a well-drained site and not where water accumulates. Avoid building in a flood plain, or where surface water levels rise during wet times of year. Some locations might be fine if the ground is dry or frozen, but become swampy during irrigation or wet seasons when ground water is abundant.
Cindy Kinder (4-H and Youth and Livestock Extension Educator, University of Idaho Extension. Gooding and Camas Counties) grew up on a cattle ranch and her children have cattle and goats of their own. “We are always working on ways to do things better and improve our facilities,” she says.
It’s often learn as you go, to figure out the best facilities. “On our own place, we built our loafing shed first, for the goats. We thought it was going to be the perfect spot for a barn. But the second winter we were there, we realized it was the wrong spot because all the runoff from rain drained in there,” says Kinder.
“If you are on a multi-generational ranch, it’s easier, because grandma knows how the water runs and what might happen. On a new place you don’t know these things. Our solution to this problem right now is to add more gravel, to make it higher and drain better but we’re still not sure if it’s going to work.”
Shannon Williams, University of Idaho Extension Educator for Lemhi County says you need to be able to move cows easily from one place to another, and be able to get in and clean the barn. “You must have clean stalls. If you have a tractor you clean out the barn with, make sure it will fit through the doors, aisles, etc.” she says.
Sometimes you have opportunity to redo an old barn or build a new one, and can improve on all the things that were unhandy with the old one. “For instance out at the Fair Grounds we had an old livestock barn, and when it fell down we had to rebuild it. We hung all the panels in such a way that we can swing everything open and use a tractor to clean all the pens on a side with one sweep,” says Williams. Have a plan for how you can clean a barn efficiently.
Kinder has seen many kinds of calving barns, from simple to elaborate. “Some have heated hot-boxes for cold calves, and others are just loafing sheds or temporary barns and pens created with big straw bales. You need to decide what kind of facilities you want. Cost is usually a major factor,” Kinder says.
“You want gates that are easy to use and swing correctly for cattle movement. I’ve seen places where they swing the wrong way. You need to understand how cattle move, not only in the barn but also as they approach and come into the barn through your corrals or alleys. Cattle generally like to move in a circle. It helps when you understand how cattle move, and you can create your facilities to flow that way, which also helps for ease of sorting,” she says.
Determine where to put doors in relation to the slope of the roof; you don’t want snow sliding off the roof in front of doors. Runoff from rain or snow must be able to drain away from the barn and not create a mud hole around it.
“You also need to think about how your doors open,” says Williams. “Do you want a sliding door that goes side to side, or a door that goes up, like a garage door, or maybe double swinging doors. A sliding door is handy because you can open it just a little or all the way, but you must be able to keep the track clean. A garage door that rolls up can be handy, if it’s tall enough—with enough clearance for a tractor,” she says.
If you are building a new barn, it helps if you’ve had experience with an old one or seen other barns and don’t want to create the problems they had. “For good ideas, go talk to your neighbors and look at their barns,” says Williams. You may see something you’d want to have in your barn, or something they’ve had to put up with that doesn’t work very well.
“Ask questions. If they could change their barn, what would they change? They may have some ideas you haven’t thought about. To better visualize what you might want, draw it out, and have someone else look at your barn plan. They might see something you could improve on,” she says.
“Ask your veterinarian for advice. Think of all the barns your veterinarian has been in, over the years—seeing the good and the bad situations for handling cattle in the barn, safe ways to restrain a cow, etc.” says Williams.
Lauren Christensen, DVM MS DACVPM (Assistant Professor, Mixed Practice Production Medicine, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Idaho) was originally in private practice working primarily with beef cow-calf operations, but has been at University of Idaho several years. “I teach undergraduate animal science classes, livestock-focused classes and am involved with Extension for the State of Idaho.”
Looking at calving barns from a veterinary perspective, she has some suggestions. “One of my favorite things is facility design. Everyone has different ways to do things. When I take vet students out to different places, there are producers I try to visit. There’s always something you can see that’s new to try, or some things to avoid in a barn set-up. All too often the barns design was by someone who didn’t have to work in the barn or clean it out,” says Christensen.
For stall size she recommends pens about 12 by 12. “You don’t want stalls too small, or a cow that is turning around has no option but to step on her calf. The standard 12 foot panels provide a decent size pen, and if you need more space for a mom and baby you can remove a panel to make one pen 24 by 12 feet,” she says.
“My favorite barns are the ones that are well thought out and have a head catch in one corner, or in a place where you don’t have to run a cow down a long alley or outside the building. I’ve seen some in which the head catch is incorporated in one of the panels. It might be between two pens so you can access it from either side. If it’s in a corner pen it could hinge where it would be in front of the cow’s shoulder and you could swing a panel to make her walk into that head catch.
“For the average producer, my preference is a dairy head catch or stanchion that’s V-shaped; when the cow puts her head down it locks it in upright position. I like those better than the beef type self-catching one that locks when their shoulders push on it. The V-shaped ones should be low enough that a cow that lies down won’t choke herself; when not in use, these can lock upright, don’t take up much room, and are easy to make. Or you might find some inexpensive used dairy stanchions,” Christensen says. These also work great for a heifer that doesn’t mother her calf, if you have to catch her several times to help her calf suckle.
For stall bedding, straw is better than shavings or sawdust, if it’s good clean straw. Shavings or sawdust can get in eyeballs, and it sticks to the wet newborn calf and the cow has to lick it off.
“If cows are not in the barn for a long time (just a few hours until a new calf is suckled and dry and the pair is well bonded) and the floor is dirt, I’ve seen some people use stall mats, like for horses. In a 12-by-12 stall you could probably put several mats in there with a little space between them (for moisture to run down through) and a little straw over the top. These clean out very easily as long as the manure, etc. isn’t freezing to the mats,” she says.
“I usually try to stack bales of hay and straw and hay in a way that it’s readily accessible for the barn, and also provide a windbreak and prevent drafts, depending on the barn layout,” says Christensen.
“The nicest calving barn I’ve seen was in north central Montana; it had radiant heat in the floor of the OB room. One summer they got this idea when pouring concrete in that part of the big barn that had a dirt floor. When they poured the concrete they installed the radiant heat system.”
Radiant heat in a concrete slab is created by embedding heating elements or PEX tubing (flexible plastic pipe) within a concrete floor to radiate warmth upwards; it’s an efficient way to heat that space. This method is ideal for new construction and uses the concrete’s thermal mass to store and distribute heat evenly.
“It’s enough heat to keep everything from freezing, and the concrete is easy to clean off. You can put a cold calf or a sick calf in that area and it’s not hot like a space heater, but warm enough to be comfortable rather than lying on cold concrete,” she says.
Think ahead for the possibility of having a sick animal in the barn—away from everything else. It’s best to have a completely separate barn or shed to shelter a sick animal. But if that’s not possible, you need a specified area in your barn that is only used for sick animals, with a space between that stall and the others.
“This should also be a reminder that all the equipment used in that stall (like for tubing calves, etc.) should be separate, and that you should clean or change your boots and gloves after being in that stall. Use different ones for the sick and for the healthy animals,” says Williams.
Lighting is also important, especially in stalls and at the area where you might have to put an animal in the head catch or have the vet come. “You want adequate lights, and plug-ins. These are cheap investments that make life easier in the barn!” she says.
Facilities are much easier to use if there’s also a good yard light, for getting animals in and out of the barn at night. Adequate lighting inside makes it easier to see what’s going on in there, or if your vet has to come work on an animal in the barn. “It also helps to have adequate plugins rather than relying on extension cords running everywhere,” says Kinder. “When you are building a facility you need to figure out where those outlets need to be,” she says.
“We don’t have power at our calving barn, but during the short time we use it, we have a generator outside the barn. It is best outside, rather than inside with all the hay and straw. This is temporary, until we have power,” says Kinder. Even if you have power, it’s a good idea to have a generator for emergencies, in case the power goes out some dark night, and you have a barn full of cows or need to deal with a calving problem or have the vet come out.
It always helps to have adequate lighting in the area where your veterinarian may be working. “We appreciate it; even though we all have headlamps, we appreciate decent lighting,” says Christensen. Some people use solar power for their barn.
In terms of efficiency, many ranchers are installing cameras in their barns so they don’t have to go out to the barn so often to check on a calving cow, and if there’s good lighting in the barn this helps you view those images. “Cameras are getting cheaper so it’s not a big investment,” says Williams. If you have a nervous heifer in the barn you can monitor her progress without disturbing her.
It’s handy to have cameras so you can see what’s going on in the barn without having to go in. “In-house security cameras work nicely,” says Kinder. “We have three for our goats—including an Arlo camera and it works great. We are learning more about goat kidding; cows usually take 30 minutes to an hour to calve but goats can drop a kid in 15 minutes. You really have to pay attention and know when they start labor,” she says.
“Having barn cameras has been a life saver. My husband and I both work and our children are at school so we are monitoring the barn remotely. The nice thing about the Arlo camera is that we can move it to whatever pen we need it—wherever we’ve decided the drop pen will be. With our goat facilities we are always adjusting. If something didn’t work, we change it, and figure out how to make it better. It’s nice to have a camera you can move,” says Kinder.
“When we bring our show heifer out of the pasture, we just move the camera to put it on her. It’s great to have flexibility.” If a person is calving heifers and you don’t want to disturb them you don’t need to keep peeking in the barn. If a heifer is nervous and sees you, she can delay calving. It’s better if they don’t know you are watching.
“When I was in practice we had an elaborate camera system so we could monitor foaling stalls, colic patients, and our calving barn,” says Christensen. “The cameras could transmit to an app on our phones so I could check on patients overnight and didn’t have to sleep in the clinic. Cameras have been a huge game-changer in calving barns. There are some inexpensive little cameras called Wyze that are sold at Home Depot. Some run off Wi-Fi so the barn must be close enough to Wi-Fi for these to work, but this is a cheap type of camera system,” says Christensen.
Sometimes a cow and calf may need to stay in the barn more than a few hours and there may be times you need to feed and water that cow. It’s nice to have access to water and feed—maybe a place to have a few little bales of hay, and a water hydrant near the barn or inside the barn in a corner, where you could hook up a hose and fill a bucket or a water tub. It can be handy to have water in the barn in certain situations.
If you calve in cold weather, you need a place to warm and dry newborn calves. “It’s also important to have some protection for calves after you get the pairs outside,” says Kinder. “I am a firm believer in the benefits of sunshine. It is amazing how warm those babies can be if they can be out of the wind in a bed of straw, in the sunshine.” They can be quite warm on a cold day.
“We can create a windbreak with cornstalk bales because we have a lot of corn in our area. If we are calving in a pasture of have put new calves out of the calving barn, they have a cornstalk bale to snuggle up to and be in the sunshine. Big straw bales can work also,” Kinder says.
“A few years ago our barn was full. Originally we thought the barn was big enough but it wasn’t. So we set out a lot of big cornstalk bales because wind is the biggest issue for us.”
Barns don’t have to be fancy and expensive to be functional. The main thing is to have adequate space for the number of animals you might need to accommodate. “Look at your calving records to get an idea how many cows might calve in a 24-hour period, and how many you might need to have in the barn at any one time, and also be able to move them in and out,” says Williams.
If you synchronize heat cycles for AI, this might result in a lot of cows calving within a 2-week period. Though some might calve a week ahead or a week after their “due date” you could have a lot of calves arriving in a short time. Even with natural service and spread-out breeding, if a storm comes through (which often triggers labor), all the cows that were going to calve in the next few days might calve today.
It may make a difference what time of year you calve, regarding barn space you’ll need. Calving in May will be a lot different than calving in January or February in a cold climate. Even if your cows can generally calve outside—as many herds do in March and April or later—if you have a late winter storm and suddenly need shelter for the ones that are calving or just calved, you will be glad you have a barn!
If you generally don’t need a calving barn, perhaps you have another shed or building you could utilize for shelter in unusual situations, but you do need a plan. This means being able to get the cattle there, if necessary. “Some ranchers have dual-purpose buildings that have other uses when not needed for calving,” she says.
“People who raise horses might have a barn that can be used for foaling as well as calving, if they are foaling a different time of year than calving, for instance,” says Williams. Or your calving barn might be a machine shed unless it’s needed for calving.
“Thinking in terms of other species, maybe you have goats or sheep as well as cattle, and the barn could be used for lambing or kidding. In that situation you want the stall panels to have close spacing at the bottom so smaller animals can’t crawl through. There might be times you have 4-H lambs in the barn,” she says.
Secure panels are a good idea even with cows; you don’t want a calf sliding into the next pen if a cow calves right next to the panel. “When we lived in Utah, one early morning when I went to check the cows in the barn, a newborn calf was wandering outside the barn; the cow had pushed it underneath the stall panel!” says Williams.
It’s also be wise to have a panel next to the barn wall but not tight up to the wall, allowing room for a calf to slide under the panel and not be crushed against the wall if a cow lies right next to the wall to calf. This also gives a person something to climb up if a protective mother attacks you in the stall; you don’t want to be smashed into the wall, either! It’s a good idea to have a place to go to get away from a cow.
When planning a calving barn, also think about accessibility from your pens and pastures, for ease of getting calving cows to the barn, from wherever the cows might be. It helps if cattle are familiar with the route to the barn; then you won’t have a problem bringing one in. “All our pastures funnel right to the barn,” says Kinder. “Also, when we are moving cows from one pasture to another, they go right by the calving barn. They are comfortable coming by the barn.” This makes it a lot easier to bring them to the barn during calving. Livestock are creatures of habit and if you understand how they think and can acclimate them to various situations, so they are comfortable about it, the first time they have go in the barn is not a scary experience.
“Our corral systems design is based around our calving barn,” says Kinder. “Our family operation started in 1968, and the corrals were built at that time. My children are looking to come back to the ranch eventually, so we need to figure out how to make things better. After that many years using the corrals and cleaning them, those old posts are exposed, and some are rotting off and not connected anymore to the ground. This is a good opportunity to change things as we rebuild them,” she says.
“When changing our corral system we plan to cover it this time, but I will miss not having the sunshine. We need to figure out how to provide adequate light. We may look into translucent roof panels. Right now we have alleyways that go to head catches and alleys that just have an end gate where we don’t catch the cows—so we can vaccinate five at a time. We need to widen things because our cows are bigger now. We still need to be able to run young heifers through, however, so we need to make our facilities more adjustable. Also, we AI some of our cows, and realize we need some man gates in mid alley so the AI technician can get in and out easily and not have to climb over the fence all the time,” says Kinder.
Safety is always a factor. “We have a good corral system but we need to put in more gates. Some cows get stressed or upset and we need safety features. My mother is 78 and still likes to help out in the corral. We keep telling her she needs to stand on the outside and let the people who can move a little faster be on the inside! I hope I am as active as she is, when I’m her age, but when you have a multi-generation operation you need to think about safety for kids and older family members.” Safety is important in the barn as well, if you have to go into a stall or pen to deal with a problem or handle a calf.
February 2026
By Heather Smith Thomas
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