Barnyard
Encyclopedia
British English
British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...
) is a yard
Yard
A yard is a unit of length in several different systems including English units, Imperial units and United States customary units. It is equal to 3 feet or 36 inches...
adjoined to a barn
Barn
A barn is an agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace. It may sometimes be used to house livestock or to store farming vehicles and equipment...
. As a combination of architecture and landscape design, the barnyard is less common now than in former times, especially since the tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
and truck
Truck
A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, with the smallest being mechanically similar to an automobile...
have replaced the horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
and wagon
Wagon
A wagon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals; it was formerly often called a wain, and if low and sideless may be called a dray, trolley or float....
.
A barnyard of the 19th century was fenced-in an area of 1 acres (4,046.9 m²) or more; the area is less in modern times. The barnyard is the domain of the mule
Mule
A mule is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Horses and donkeys are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes. Of the two F1 hybrids between these two species, a mule is easier to obtain than a hinny...
s, horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
s, and other working animal
Working animal
A working animal is an animal, usually domesticated, that is kept by humans and trained to perform tasks. They may be close members of the family, such as guide or service dogs, or they may be animals trained strictly to perform a job, such as logging elephants. They may also be used for milk, a...
s, as well as fowl and working pets, such as barn cats. Animals often rest in barnyards after days of work on the farm. On small farms, pasture animals such milk goats or a dairy cow may stay in the barnyard when not in the fields.
The barnyard is also a good place for an apple or pear tree
Tree
A tree is a perennial woody plant. It is most often defined as a woody plant that has many secondary branches supported clear of the ground on a single main stem or trunk with clear apical dominance. A minimum height specification at maturity is cited by some authors, varying from 3 m to...
, which can provide shade. The watering trough
Watering trough
A watering trough is a receptacle for the storage of water so both domestic and non-domestic livestock can obtain drinking water....
(in past times supplied by water from a hand driven well
Water well
A water well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, boring or drilling to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The well water is drawn by an electric submersible pump, a trash pump, a vertical turbine pump, a handpump or a mechanical pump...
) occupy a prominent place in the barnyard, with the water kept in wooden or metal troughs. The water trough must be filled daily, perhaps by a pitcher pump
Pump
A pump is a device used to move fluids, such as liquids, gases or slurries.A pump displaces a volume by physical or mechanical action. Pumps fall into three major groups: direct lift, displacement, and gravity pumps...
, or by windmill
Windmill
A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...
power. Pumping the trough full, by hand, might be the chore of the farm boys. It takes a long time of continuous pumping with a pitcher pump to fill a large trough.
A large barn is often central to the barnyard, storing wagons and a hay rake
Rake (tool)
A rake is a broom for outside; an horticultural implement consisting of a toothed bar fixed transversely to a handle, and used to collect leaves, hay, grass, etc., and, in gardening, for loosening the soil, light weeding and levelling, removing dead grass from...
, and providing stalls for the farm animals. A hayloft occupies the second floor, the barn cupola capped off the hayloft. The loft has a series of openings in the floor just above the stalls. These openings are used to fork hay into the cribs below. The hayloft is a pleasant place to play on rainy days, and children tunnel through the hay and build mounds to jump into. Frequently, the barn houses the corn crib and a corn sheller. The corn is used to supplement the hay diet and is relished both by horses and mules, as well as by foraging chickens and guinea fowl. It is also a boon to mice and rats, so farmers often keep barn cats to control vermin
Vermin
Vermin is a term applied to various animal species regarded by some as pests or nuisances and especially to those associated with the carrying of disease. Since the term is defined in relation to human activities, which species are included will vary from area to area and even person to person...
.