5 acre property layout help please.

[Texasgirl]

H![](, everyone one. I just found your website and it’s a wonderful site. Love the forums.

We bought 5.18 acres two years ago and are planning to build a house there. Both of my kids want horses (well so I do probably even more than they do.LOL)

I’ve bought and read the book Horsekeeping on a Small acreage. Very helpful but the layout section feels a little lacking. I really wish they had offered a few different shapes of property. My land is not rectangular shape and more square like.

A little about my property. We are located in South Texas near the Mexican border and South Padre Island. My land was filled with Mesquite and huisache tress but has been cleared of them. So we have a blank slate to start with. The winds come up from the south/southeast. The front of the property faces NE.

Our wants for the property are a house, hubbys workshop, a shedrow barn with paddocks attach, A sacrifice area, an arena for my kids, and some rotational pastures. I’ve tried to do a layout but I think it can be better, so I’m coming to you the experts for help. I would like to have the arena behind the house so I can watch the kids from the living room. Also on the Left side of the property my husband wants a firing range. He’s a gun smith and sometimes has to fire the guns to test them luckily he doesn’t do it often. I don’t think we need a round arena. I just want it to look pretty.

The first pic is the survey of our property
[IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/tikilyn/Fish/horse%20farm%20layout/land%20survey%203_zpsdub43b0y.jpg)

This is an Ariel of the propety. We’ve cleared everything in the red box and the top right corner.

[IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/tikilyn/Fish/horse%20farm%20layout/land%20clearing_zpsc3lkamq9.jpg)

The last two pictures is what I designed using the horsekeeping on small acreage. I’m not quite thrill with the layout behind the house. My husband want the two large fields on the right so we can make some hay in the spring to help off set the cost to purchasing it. I think those two fields are almost and acre each but could be wrong.

Feel free to ask me anything. I’m open to any ideas.
Thanks

[IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/tikilyn/Fish/horse%20farm%20layout/land%20survey%202_zpsplnjn3fb.jpg)

[IMG]http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b121/tikilyn/Fish/horse%20farm%20layout/farm%20layout_zpsqhjxifae.jpg)

[clanter]

We have nearly what you have drawn in the first. We are on just under five acres (lot is 400 ft across front and back with sides of 510 feet

Our house and barn are nearly where you have drawn yours … difference is the round pen for us is between barns and house off to one side as to no block view of barns. (we located the house off to one side just incase we ever wanted to spin off the adjoining acreage)

Paddocks are constructed around barn on the west side with a variety of sizes leaving about three acres as turn out (this is divided in a one acre and a two acre)

Expect to feed hay year round so include storage.

One thing we did that was worth the expense was to run water to all pastures and electricity to the barns

[pluvinel]

For conditioning, I love a “training track”…eg., a 10’-12’ wide sand/stonedust track that encircles the entire property where you can go for gallops. Such a track guarantees good footing, no gopher holes, or other dangers and allows the horse to go forward freely.

You show double fence on your property, (fig 1) so you can install the track between the paddock fencing and the outer fence. Based on the rough dimensions of your lot, this would give you about a quarter mile track.

It also makes it easy to maintain the fencelines since you don’t have to weed whack if you put the sand/stone base into the fence lines.

[Flash44]

The track thing sounds cool, but it also sounds like a lot of potential work. I have a stone dust ring, and even though I ride every day, weeds and grass try to grow so I have to spray it.

OP will need a hard packed surface to the barn so that deliveries can be made and the farrier can get back there. I wish my barn was closer to my house so I could duck out there easier to feed lunch, top off water, etc.

[pluvinel]

@Flash44;8308588

The track thing sounds cool, but it also sounds like a lot of potential work. I have a stone dust ring, and even though I ride every day, weeds and grass try to grow so I have to spray it.

It is called “chemical gardening”…use a pre-emergent herbicide a couple of times a year and no weed seeds will germinate.

Just “spraying” to kill weeds does nothing for any new seeds sprouting that are brought in by birds and wind. Since you are already spraying, add a preemergent to the herbicide you are already doing and…voila, no weeds.

[NoSuchPerson]

In all the places I’ve lived over the years, I’ve had two different layouts that worked really well.

1. This property was 10 acres and was almost a perfect square. The house was on the front of the property in the middle facing the road, with pastures arranged around the house/yard in a “U” shape. Garage/workshop behind the house to the left, barn behind the house to the right. You could access any pasture via gates that connected to the backyard as well as access the barn without having to walk across a pasture.

2. This property is where I live now. It’s a 5 acre rectangle with the road along one short side. House and all outbuildings along the right side of the property, driveway runs straight up the right edge of the property, past the house and out to the farthest outbuilding. Pastures all along the left side of the property and also all the way to the right side of the property in the back past the last outbuilding. All pastures can be accessed from the yard/driveway. I like this layout better than any I’ve had before. The only “wasted” space is a wooded area that I’ve left intact right in front of the house. I keep it for the birds, squirrels, and other assorted wildlife that uses it. But, if I didn’t want to keep it “wild,” that space could easily be converted to another small pasture.

[PeteyPie]

I would put a little more attention on the house. You will be living there and for resale, it is the most important thing. Although it is cheaper to locate the house near the highway and requires a shorter, less expensive driveway, I would place the house farther away from the road. For me, if I am living in the country, I do not want to deal with the annoyance of road noise and lack of privacy. I think it is a little more elegant to have the house back off the road and more aesthetically pleasing. Also, I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like there is a river or lower area toward the back of the property, or does the land rise at the back? I can’t tell. If it drops down and provides a view, be sure to take advantage of that.

Another thing I would do is to put in a circular driveway in front of the house with side parking.

Finally, I would take the advice of some other COTH contributor on another thread who advised a new farm owner to put off major farm projects for a year, to get the feel of the place and find out how you really want to use it. So I guess that would mean hay under tarps or a moveable hay shed and easy-to-move corrals with shade instead of a barn for the first year. I just think that makes a lot of sense. It will allow you to figure out where to store hay and manure, where to put the horses so you can see them from the house, how much space you want to provide for the hay truck and farrier, etc. I realize that you are trying to do that by smart planning, but you can put things in place initially according to your plans, but avoid permanent fencing or buildings until you have a chance to try it all out.

[AmarachAcres]

We also have a track that the horses have access to and they keep it mowed down. It leads around the perimeter with safely curved corners so you (and they) can run it. It leads from the sacrifice area with water to the pasture gates. To rotate pastures we just wait for them to be on a water break and switch which gates are open.

I love having the house and barn close together. In bad weather it makes it a lot easier to get things done.

Do you have a well or septic? If you consider composting just make sure the compost is 100 feet from the well, preferably down hill.

I’m a visual person so if you post a satellite photo I do better. Have a hard time with drawings like that.

We used google earth to plan a lot of our stuff using the survey as a reference.

We even cut out little round pens, compost squares, and arenas to scale and moved them around on a print out of the property.

Love that you have a clean slate to start with. The house, barn and shop were all there when we purchased so figuring out arena’s and fencing was a different experience.

[PeteyPie]

AmarachAcres, the second link she posted is an aerial photo. (Note to OP: “ariel” is a gazelle – I’m not trying to sound snarky, but I couldn’t keep my fingers from typing that).

Good luck on your exciting project!

[Texasgirl]

Thank you everyone for your help. The husband and I are still drawing up possible layouts. One thing I didn’t even think of is the septic system placement. I’ll have to talk with our builder about it.

I’m going to keep reading and learning.

[AmarachAcres]

[QUOTE=PeteyPie;8308865]
AmarachAcres, the second link she posted is an aerial photo. (Note to OP: “ariel” is a gazelle – I’m not trying to sound snarky, but I couldn’t keep my fingers from typing that).

Good luck on your exciting project![/QUOTE]

I clicked all the links and just saw drawings. Maybe it wasn’t working for me.

You guys will come up with something great, I’m sure!

[Flash44]

[QUOTE=Texasgirl;8311547]
Thank you everyone for your help. The husband and I are still drawing up possible layouts. One thing I didn’t even think of is the septic system placement. I’ll have to talk with our builder about it.

I’m going to keep reading and learning.[/QUOTE]

yes, you might have to plan it all around the septic!!!

[14hands]

Good evening! I am bumping this post because we are in a similar predicament. OP- How did you end up doing your layout? Our potential lot is more rectangular than yours but I’d love to see what you ended up with. We are in a mesquite rich area as well.

[Bluey]

@Texasgirl

Thank you everyone for your help. The husband and I are still drawing up possible layouts. One thing I didn’t even think of is the septic system placement. I’ll have to talk with our builder about it.

I’m going to keep reading and learning.

You could always put the septic leach field in the front of the house landscaping area, even the septic tank, as long as a truck can get close enough to empty it.
As long as you don’t have trees (roots) or vehicular traffic on or close to the leach field.
Driving over it with a mower is ok.

[Bluey]

Bet you are loving it.
Wonderful that you finally have that settled and are happy there.

Thank you for the update, may give others some ideas for their own places.

[gahorseygal]

Great update!

[Arigold]

Thanks for the update. About 10 years ago I went through the whole horse layout thing as well. Similar size property, but more of a rectangle with an existing house in a back corner. For layout ideas I scanned my property map into the computer then used Power Point to draw lines etc to scale. Worked great especially when I had to calculate fence material Two suggestions: 1 - consider connecting barn paddocts to pasture fencing with gates. Then you can leave open that gate so the horses can come back to shade of the barn during the day when you are not home to bring them in. As well, it allows a farm sitter to just open the gate without having to lead/handle your horses. 2 - It does look like you can do a perimeter aisle around your property, ending to the 100x200 pasture/arena. I did not do this, but wish I had. As a previous poster said it serves well for riding exercise, speading some manure (if not screenings), and a dry lot. One access could be a path directly from you current dry lot, just in front of the tree line.
Also plan on running water lines to all the pastures and dry lots, hoses are a pain in the butt!