“We’re fortunate we had a place that was ideal,” he says. “It had good drainage and was sandy ground, so it didn’t hold water too bad. It’s where we were stacking round bales on the ground anyway.”

It’s also convenient, just a few yards from the commodity barn and next to the working pens of 3L Ranch, the Prattville, Ala., Angus-Hereford operation he operates with his sister, Linda Lipscomb. Pastures are also an easy haul.

► Rock, dirt or concrete?

While Lipscomb depends on crusher run to drain moisture away from stored hay, cattleman and commercial hay producer Ronny Shingler has dirt floors in part of his hay barns and concrete in others.

“Both create their own issues. Dirt creates dust, which can be a problem. Concrete tends to sweat, and moisture comes up through the concrete,” he says. “One of the neatest things I’ve seen is I have a friend who stores a lot of perennial peanut hay. He put asphalt fines in the bottom of his hay barn. That’s a lot cheaper than concrete, and it seems to work pretty good.”

On his dirt-floored barns, Shingler, who owns Shingler Farms with his wife, Renee, uses a combination of pallets and loose hay and pallets on the concrete-floored barns.

► Steel or wood?

There’s also the barn itself. The Blakely, Ga., producer has barns built from red iron as well as pole barns.

“At the time we built them, the red-iron barns were more expensive than pole barns, maybe 15% to 20%; but now the cost has almost doubled,” says Shingler. “You almost can’t afford to build a red-iron hay barn.”

His solution — building pole barns instead, because they are so much more inexpensive.

“The limiting factor on a pole barn is clearance between the posts and poles,” he notes. “You get so much more clearance with a steel barn. But, it takes a high-value crop to justify it. Alfalfa, perennial peanut would work, but not regular grass hay. No doubt, it’ll protect the quality of the hay, but somebody’s got to pay for it.”

He adds, “Steel beams certainly last longer, but it’s interesting. When Hurricane Michael came through in 2018, we lost two red-iron barns, which are steel beams with steel rafters; and we only lost one pole barn. We also had two pole barns that had very little damage.”

Shingler notes that their pole barns are usually built on a 12-ft. center, while the iron buildings are on a 25-ft. or 30-ft. center.

“You can span longer, but it doesn’t do any good with 150-mile-per-hour wind,” he says. “I promise you, though, nothing does. We lost 27 oak trees in my yard, and these trees have been here for 100 years.”