Huge wooden barrel in a old dairy barn, what was it used for? Is it worth anything? It's in the hayloft.

I would say probably a cistern , in a dairy barn to feed the waterers , under a massive pile of straw above a warm parlor of cows it probably wouldn't freeze and days you had whatever ran your well or collected your water you could fill it and then dispense from it for a while.

that would be my guess

I like the wood beams

Pig castrater

Why would a mash tub come to mind for me, lol.

Beautiful old barn, it's being demoed shortly, pushed into a pile and burned, it's not mine but still breaks my heart.

Certainly looks like one. Don't really see an intake for it to be a cistern?

Water tank to feed drinking cups. Used before electric pumps with pressure switches. How often it needs filling depends on how many head of cattle you have. It would be covered in the summer when you put up hay, and normally wouldn't freeze up.

Too bad it's getting tore down. It's a nice looking barn.

I still like the mash barrel idea, js.

Many old dairy barns had them.
Remember asking about them as a kid.
That's exactly what they were.
A barn full of cows produces more heat than most can realize.

Is there a big coil of copper tubing inside it?

Cowboy hottub

I got permission to take the barrel and anything else I want in the barn. I wish I could take the beams, absolutely beautiful barn.

Do these folks have any idea of the value of that lumber??

[video:youtube]https://youtube.com/shorts/QoX-z5Hzt5E?si=F-Bg3X0yiXMoofQF[/video]

Here's a short video I made of the barn.

Any connection to climate change? Lol

there was a Lord in Victorian England who used cattle on the bottom level of his green house rather than a boiler like most of the others to keep his green house from freezing.
to witch anyone who has been around cattle or dairy says , wouldn't that be terribly dusty and the answer to that was rather than paying a guy to tend the boiler 24/7 he paid them to wash the cattle very regularly and keep it spotlessly clean.

so it cost him the same in labor but didn't cost in wood to fire the boiler

all the manure was sent out to the cold frames to keep them warm

there were a Lot of old US farming innovations that were fairly short lived from about 1910 to 1950 as places got electric and pressure pumps

my grandpa milked a round barn for a while held about 30-40 head they all went in then there was a hanging trolley system behind the girls the they were still milking into cans and that hung from the rail system as did the manure one that was like a trip bucket wheel barrow pan a few inches off the floor you just pushed it around and scooped into it. waterers and feed were in the middle and manure and milking on the outside. but none of it had to touch the floor so it helped keep it clean and from tracking.

it really minimized the labor to milking and cleanup by his account of it

No one saw the old bike with no top cross frame. It looks weak but neat......j.k

I see that

with that platform and having a hand brake I half wonder if it wasn't used to haul something