The advantages of concrete feeding floors so appealed to the farmers
who first built them that they enlarged the floors until their entire
barnyards were surfaced with concrete.
It is no uncommon sight in the spring and winter to see an earthen barn
lot so deep with mud that animals go thirsty rather than attempt a trip
to the water trough.
The effect is bad on all kinds of livestock, especially on fattening
animals and dairy cattle. “Feeders” must have an abundance of water
to fatten quickly. Insufficient water cuts down the quantity of milk
given by dairy cows. Lack of enough exercise further decreases the
yield. An occasional trip through this mud to the trough, so cakes the
cows’ udders with dirt that the milker wastes valuable time in washing
them—and they must be washed, if one would have clean, wholesome milk.
Continual tracking through the mud not only makes more currying, but
often produces that irritation on horses’ legs known as “scratches.”
Suddenly frozen, such an earthen lot is so rough that it is impassable.
Moreover, the old barnyard—with its surface worked up year after
year—becomes a storage place, which carries over the disease germs
from one season to another. The “droppings” are entirely lost, and,
mixed with the earth, tend to make the lot muddier the following year.
To keep up the fertility of the soil, all the manure produced on a farm
should be saved and returned to the fields.