In the B. Sc. we focused on the analysis of the currently most widespread forms of barns for dairy cows and individual functional areas in them. In Slovenia, the most dominant form of barns is still smaller ones with tied-in housing systems. We introduced and described the free barns and barns with deep bedding, that are still the dominant ones in Slovenia. Besides those, we introduced barns with compost bedding system, which is not yet used in Slovenia. We also described key factors that the farmer must keep in mind so that he can guarantee the animals optimal living conditions. With that we mean the lighting of the barn, which throughout the year makes sure that the animals have enough light, some ways of ventilation, with which we make sure that the air in the barn is always circling and which helps to prevent potential heat stress, or reduce it in the time of high summer temperatures. There are more and more types of milking systems on the market every year: from the fish bone, for smaller herds, to rotary milking system for larger ones. In the B. Sc. thesis, we present different types of milking systems that are most commonly in use and describe their workings and functionality depending on the size of the herd. In the assignment, we also described an example of a modern and innovative barn from Netherlands, where they approach cow farming quite differently that we do, which is very well presented by examples like the so called ‘Cow Garden’ barn.
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