Does anybody know why "RED" is the traditional color for barns?

Question

Does anybody know why "RED" is the traditional color for barns?

Answer 1

The only thing I can think of , is the bright color so the animals know thats where to go, and easier to find.. That would be my reason of thinking..  

Answer 2

Wealthy farmers added blood from a recent slaughter to the oil mixture. As the paint dried, it turned from a bright red to a darker, burnt red.

Farmers added ferrous oxide, otherwise known as rust, to the oil mixture. Rust was plentiful on farms and is a poison to many fungi, including mold and moss, which were known to grown on barns. These fungi would trap moisture in the wood, increasing decay.

Regardless of how the farmer tinted his paint, having a red barn became a fashionable thing. They were a sharp contrast to the traditional white farmhouse.

As European settlers crossed over to America, they brought with them the tradition of red barns. In the mid to late 1800s, as paints began to be produced with chemical pigments, red paint was the most inexpensive to buy. Red was the color of favor until whitewash became cheaper, at which point white barns began to spring up

Answer 3

My grandfather was a farmer in the depression. my mother stated to chukle when she saw this quesion, she said that she had asked this very quesion of her father 40 years ago,and he said, "because it was the cheapest paint to make".  

So the answer is pure and simple, lower cost.

Answer 4

Old paints were made out of simple chemicals,

iron oxide was red, lead oxide was white.

The red was cheaper, safer, & easier to maintain.