# Barn lime



## nlhayesp

I have a simple question, but can't find the answer. I have used hydrated lime from TSC when cleaning the barn. They also sell a product called "barn lime" which is crushed limestone. What is the difference and what product works best at keeping the flies down?


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## smithurmonds

I was under the impression that hydrated lime (sometimes called quick lime) is not safe. It's dolomitic lime (sometimes called barn lime or ag lime) that we use. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong.


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## swgoats

They are both safe. I have used both. The hydrated is much messier though since it is a fine powder. You don't want to get it wet and let it sit on your skin. Dry it doesn't hurt you. My goats have licked it and stuck their noses in it, it didn't hurt them. I prefer working with the barn lime TSC sells. I can't say I think either cuts down on flies. Maybe I don't use enough. Chickens seem to be the most helpful.


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## NubianSoaps.com

Hydrated or slaked lime, and urine...can burn udders and vulva. It's fine for most of the year, goats rarely dig into the soil of the barn until they are kidding....imagine birth fluids and hydrated lime in the barn dirt. Use barn lime.


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## fmg

I always tell the people I want the lime for barns and they give me funny looks, then get a back of hydrated lime. Then I ask if that's what people use in barns, and they tell me yes....I don't think there is a barn lime here. We do have these little bead things Sweet PDZ I think it's called, for horse stalls.


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## Ziggy

Sweet PDz is much more expensive that lime though..


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## smithurmonds

Nancy, here the staff at places like Tractor Supply give me the same quizzical looks. They're mostly clueless- I learned not to call and ask if they have it, but just go in and find it myself. Dolomitic, not hydrated.


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## nlhayesp

Thanks for the all of the info. I have used both products, and am currently using Barn Lime because of the cost differences (roughly 1/3 - 1/2 the cost of hydrated lime) , but I didn't want my frugality to get in the way of doing the right thing. Barm lime is easier (not a fine powder, so doesn't get in my contacts). One time when I was buying the hydrated lime at TSC, the cashier asked me "so, do you have an outhouse that stinks?" I was taken aback and wasn't quite sure what she was inferring!


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## fmg

The problem is that the stores here don't usually keep stuff like that on the shelf. Although at D&B I did see a bag of DE and one of hydrated lime. Still no barn lime. There's no such thing as a Tractor Supply here, but similar stores are around. i guess I will have to keep looking. The outhouse thing is weird. :really


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## NubianSoaps.com

My god I am so old! Na, we lived out here in the woods without electricty for a year, living in a travel trailer when the kids were young 2, 4 and 8, and built our house out of pocket, took 3 years. No way was I going to empty the holding tank in the trailer (I had to bucket it) so other than late nights and emergencies, you used the outhouse. We had a window, a toliet seat and a regular toilet paper holder. After you go, you open this little bucket that had a lid on it and put a scoop of lime (during the winter we used our wood ashes) over your poop 

And part of my story which is funny and not about the subject, I had a UTI, my doctor asked me what color my urine was, I had to tell him I had no idea because I used an outhouse....to say he had a shocked look on his face is an understatement!


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## happy vagabonds

http://www.farmandfleet.com/products/368973-shurtred_barnlime.html#.UBrmOLSe6So

this is what i buy from TSC.

the hydrated lime is either for lawn care for adjusting PH in soil or i have read that cattlemen use it sometimes in feed lots during the spring in front of feeding troughs (i think) because the cattle congregate there and urinate a lot and the hydrated lime works faster to dry up mud than ag lime.

i was trying to find the article i had read regarding this, but it was from several months ago when i was researching this for myself.

but yes, i have read that the hydrated lime is very caustic and not to be used in stalls.


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## dragonlair

I lived in a house with 4 kids (3, 4, 9 and 12) and an outhouse. We had a 2 seater and is set up quite high with steps up to the seat area. It was attached to the wood shed and had 3 windows that looked out into the horse pasture. It was common to have the horses poke their heads in during the summer months, and we even had a adolescant male moose poke his head in to say hi. We used the regular barn lime each time we used the outhouse, and we used wood ashes too! I think, Vicki, we are of the same age.

I get mine at TSC now. I buy the lime for horse stalls, it's coarser than the other stuff and not as dusty.


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## NPgoats

ROFL this is funny!
Ok I found using DE has helped the most in my barn along with fly strips that hang from the ceiling/rafters. Just don't get caught in them cause the sticky doesn't come off.....easily. 
Linda


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## fmg

Haha, Vicki! You would think they'd see the color of your urine when you peed in the cup!


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## Greylady

:yeahthat


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## Annie

We've got an old (over 150 yr) bank barn, my goats are in the basement, which was concreted at some point. I use the hydrated lime on my stall floors whenever I clean them down to the concrete. I remove all bedding/manure, scrape the floor clean, let it dry GOOD. Then I use a scoop of the lime and a push broom to kinda brush it into the concrete, NEVER leaving any piles of the lime dust. Then the fresh straw/bedding. I do think using the lime also somehow helps when I come back to clean that stall the next time.

Yep, hydrated lime is good for outhouses, had quite a few Amish neighbors who used it


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## Holly Govero

Now you guys make me feel horrible. I am only 29 years old and we did have outhouse.. My great grandpa's farm house that I stay with him all the time and he made me to use the outhouse. I rememeber I was soo scared to go to the outside becuz of SNAKES been on my mind when I was lil bitty kid.. I asked him to please take me to my mom's to go pee. he said NOPE and walked with me to the outside at NIGHT TIME and he held the lantern outside of the outside thru the hole so I can SEE.. Never again but i sure do miss my memories with him and the outhouse. LOL..


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## NorthOf49

I'm only 26 and I grew up with an outhouse. No running water or electricity. (I had a special upbringing...  ) Somehow it's stuck with me how the doctor once told us that there was a study out that the longer the distance to the outhouse, the larger the bladder developed. So true! And I never took a light because no matter how scary the dark was, I was more afraid of the light drawing all the predators to me like a moth to a flame.


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## nlhayesp

I am enjoying how my question has taken a life of its own! While outhouses were not in my upbringing (city girl who always felt like I should have been born in another century; now living my dream in the country), camping was/is, as well as Girl Scouts. We would always do "primitive". We have a family anecdote of my great-grandfather who refused to use indoor plumbing, even when it was installed in his own home. "It isn't natural to do your business in the house." That said, I will continue with Barn Lime, as it is cheaper. Thanks!


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## swgoats

Lol, I had a friend who's grandma didn't have plumbing. She had a hand pump sink in the kitchen and an out house. I don't recall lime. That's pretty smart. She did keep an old stock pot in a closet that was used as a chamber pot, so if you were inside you didn't have to go out.


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## Annie

My Grandparents in southern WV had an outhouse, Grandpa refused to use the indoor plumbing after it was installed, even refused to use the bathtub. We had quite a few relatives with outhouses, so they were not that unusual or scary to me.

But I did/DO have intense fear of SNAKES - Holly, still! Should have seen or heard me yesterday when we were moving a round bale and one jumped out of the bale acccckkk!

Another use for hydrated lime that my daughter came up with. She has mini horses, and several are true escape artists. Now when she thinks she might know a particular escape area, she puts down a fine layer of the lime, then watches it daily for hoof prints


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## Holly Govero

Annie, LOL I shouldnt laugh about it.. I will never be able to hear u screaming like bloody murder. LOL.. I know how u feel thou. I do scream like bloody murder if i see snakes or dead snakes. I CANT STAND THEM.. Becuz of what happened to me when i was like 3 years old. I remember just like it yesterday!! At my parents's basement, I was in the bathroom and my aunt was like teenager and fixing her hair in the bathroom while I had go potty and there was a HHUUGGE snake coming out of the wall and it scared me to death and my aunt freaked out and grabbed me away from the toilet. It was like HHUUGGE for me while being 3 years old!!


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## Annie

It's ok to LOL Holly! Heck, I have to laugh or I'll go crazy living on this farm and worrying about snakes, they ARE part of farm life! Mmmm...maybe I should put a layer of lime down all over, then I could see where those slithering demons have been......LOL And you may not have heard me scream but you would have surely seen me jump 5 ft backward hahahhaa



No wonder you're afraid after being scared at such a young age!

Yep, lime does have a lot of uses


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## nlhayesp

I had a roommate in college that would make a comment: "this would make a good pee-jar" when we bought large jars of peanut butter, etc. I never heard that expression before, and didn't know if it was a local phrase from S. Ohio. I finally asked her what it meant. Her grandmother raised her in a house in the hills with no indoor plumbing. They saved wide-mouth jars for chamber pots. I was camping in S. Illinois years ago. After setting up camp, I used the outhouse. "Mid-stream" after a long day on the road, I suddenly saw slithering down the wall NEXT TO ME a 6 foot long black snake. Needless to say, I chose to forego all modesty and ran screaming from the outhouse, pulling up my shorts as I ran. A park officer was patrolling at the time, heard my screams and came running. When I told him the story, he looked at me as if I were nuts or had been drinking. He obliged my request to check it out. Opening the door, he saw nothing, until the snake dangled its head down ABOVE the open door in his face! "Oh, its just a black snake. Nothing to worry about". I have a photo of him with a stick encouraging it to move on. I think that's what did it for me and outhouses! And yes, it was 6 foot long!


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## jpmaynard

Nancy, I don't know why but even Cal Ranch does not carry lime. They look at me like I am speaking another language. Maybe it is because we are in such a dry climate lime has not been a common product in our area. Let me know if you find a supplier and I will do the same.


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## Annie

My grandma and a few aunts kept "pee-jars" for the youngun's in the house at night. They were in Beckley WV, but I've heard that expression a lot and I'm in eastern Ohio LOL

I think we get our hydrated lime at the local feed mill, not sure if our Tractor Supply Store carries it, I'll have to check next time. I wonder if Lowe's does?


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## swgoats

Our Lowe's does not. I was sure they would, but no. They only had the pricey pelleted lime for gardening.


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