mudhen;
Way back when I seem to recall that the cattle operations on the prairies had wind break fences put up - sometimes maybe in an L shape?
Anyway I was told that horses and I want to say cattle too, are able to generate enough heat if they've got a full belly. The trick with horses was to have cold enough feed that they'd be able to munch away throughout the day and it not have an adverse affect on them.
Dwayne... thanks for your input, it's always nice to hear from a fellow prairie boy when the talk turns to real cold!
On our family farm in Saskatchewan our cattle were all dairy cows, so they were never that far from the barn. Just a standard wood barn, not insulated or anything fancy... but the milking stalls (we milked by hand, only 14 head) were across from the pig pens and the ceiling was low, and even when it got down to the -40's it was warm enough in there to take off your overcoat and milk in coveralls. Uncle used to complain about how much feed & hay they would go through, though.
The neighbors had beef cattle, and as I recall Mr. Crawford had cowsheds with a roof and 3 walls, open to the east, and his beeves did just fine in those sheds even in the coldest weather. But it was a b!tch starting the tractors to drag hay out to them! We'd boil big kettles of water on the stove in the house, carry then out to the tractor, pour the water into the radiator, and then start them. When we finished the chores we'd drain the radiators so we could hot-start them the next morning.
