Pigeon Inspired Clean-Up In The Hay Barn

One of the pigeons roosting in the haybarn.

The pigeons are exploring the barn.  On Friday they were hanging out in the polebarn and it looked like they were building a nest in the hay barn.  I don’t mind them being in the hayloft, but we don’t want their dropping on the hay.

When we moved to the farm,  half of the barn ceiling was covered in some kind of pressed cardboard sheets.  Thinner than sheetrock, I imagine someone put it up to keep the hay from the loft from falling through the floorboards.  Maybe they used the barn as a garage to keep or work on cars.

I’ve been wanting to take the boards down since we moved in, but I knew it would be hard dirty work and I just wasn’t up for it.  Until yesterday, when I saw the pigeons fly into the space between the boards and the flooring. We don’t want them nesting there.

So I put on my sweatshirt, a hat, and mask, set up the ladder, and using a crowbar, pulled down the boards nailed to the barn beams.

There were plenty of old nests.  I found part of an egg in one, but they also looked like mice and rat nests.  The board came down easy and after pulling the nails out, Jon and I made a fire and burned it all in the barnyard with some of the branches from the maple that fell last summer.

Some of the barn beams were a little punky on the surface, but are solid an inch in.  I loved revealing the beams and the barn looks so much better without the warped board nailed to them. It’s also cleaner not to have all those old nests rotting away in the ceiling.

And so far it looks like the pigeons are keeping to the hay loft.  It’s the first time in days that I opened the barn door and they weren’t flapping around looking for an easy way out.

The ceiling of the barn without the boards

4 thoughts on “Pigeon Inspired Clean-Up In The Hay Barn

  1. The barn looks wonderful! The exposed rafters have lots of character along with the very cool chair! Cleaning out the barn is a ton of work but the results are so satisfying! We removed a bunch of old nests bird and rodent this past fall and found a family of ditch rats in our wood. That explained why our dog Escher who is half Jack Russell terrier would stare and growl at the wood for hours. Never a dull moment on the farm, it’s a good life!

    1. It is really satisfying Josie. Now I just have to fix the broken windows. That will feel really good. I’ve never heard of ditch rats but I can imagine your Jack Russell, Bud would have been doing the same. I bet your dog is the only one in your family that will miss them!

  2. Oh my gosh that brought back memories! We bought an old house with an attic with 10 cm layer of pigeon poop and corpses. Cleaned it all up and a couple of years later we found dead pigeons between the ceiling and the floor. To this day I can still smell pigeons. Don’t blame you one bit (not that I would) for postponing that task.

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