I’m going to be putting an addition on our current horse barn to add 3 more stalls. My wash stall/grooming stall will be in the current barn. The new stalls will have dutch doors where they can go in and out at will. My main question is regarding the aisle that will serve as a walkway for me to get to the stalls on the inside and also to be able to lead my horse to the grooming stall. Right now I have it set at 6’. Is this too narrow for a horse to walk down? Thanks!
It is unclear how exactly this set up looks - is it just an open aisle to get from old barn to new barn, or is it the aisle that the stall doors open to?
I personally would never build an aisle <12’ wide, but I’m sure you’ll get a variety of answers.
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Its an enclosed aisle with stalls on one side and a wall on the other but yes the purpose is only to walk between the old barn and the new stalls. Just seems excessive to make a walkway 12’ wide…
I boarded briefly at a barn once with a 6’ aisle with stall doors (sliding) opening to it. Worst experience ever. So cramped, hard to get the bigger horses in and out of stalls, can’t turn a horse around in it, and just generally uncomfortable. But hey, it’s your barn.
6’ is tight to walk with a horse for any length of time. Consider a stall door–those are usually 4’. The two extra feet you get going to 6’ doesn’t give you much room there if anything interesting happens.
I’d not want to go narrower than ten feet, but some people have eight foot aisles and find them okay.
Just remember that the width isn’t just for getting from place a to place b…it’s also room for you to get far enough away from the horse to not get hurt if something really goes south. Even the most broke, calmest horse can have bad days.
Narrow aisles might also be limiting if you ever go to sell the property.
Understanding how the addition will be added to the barn would be helpful. If its a short pass-through where you don’t need a tractor or riding mower or ATV to go, that might suffice. But wider is always better when you have the option to do so.
I have a narrow pass-through between two stalls off my mail aisle to get to the side of my large and old pole barn. Its only 9 or so feet long and was the only way to get to the two stalls I added after enclosing that bay of the barn. Its 4.5’ wide (no way to move the poles holding up the barn). Now, we never needed those two stalls (I have 4 stalls on my main 13’ aisle) and use those two stalls for storage.The wheelbarrows easily fit, but our lawn tractor or anything bigger doesn’t. If I’d had the option to, it would have been at least 10’ wide.
The only way I would consider 6’ wide enough there is if horses are never in it. Since it looks like you’ll have them through there regularly to access the grooming area, 10’ is where “safe” starts. Wider is better.
(8’ is also narrow for your overhang. I have 8’ now and it’s so useless. 12’ or more will make A HUGE impact.)
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Seeing your diagram, and assuming you’re using sliding stall doors on the inside, I’m go no narrower than 8’ wide for your aisle way. If your stall doors open into the aisle inside, I’d make the aisle 10’ wide. I think you’d be regretting a 6’ aisle to service three stalls in short order.
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I have an 8 ft wide aisle on my shedrow. It’s perfect for a shedrow but if we closed it in it would be very cramped.
What is the impact on your barn if you widen your aisle to at least 10’’? I’m also in the design phase of my new barn so appreciate these posts. I plan a somewhat similar design to what you have and from reading was having my inner aisle at 11’.
on our small barn we went with ten feet because all of our stock panels are ten foot. We can use two panels to make a temporary stall or to block off the hallway to allow some horse(s) a little freedom during long stays in the stalls
It would block the existing window in my tack room. Not a huge deal but I really think 8’ is all I need
I took care of a barn with four stalls on each side of an 8’ aisle.
One disadvantage is that any you want to put in there or haul off from there has to be manual labor.
You can’t get much of anything thru there, other than maybe a mower pulling a dump cart and make many trips with any supplies, like bedding and manure when cleaning stalls.
Stalls were bars, no heads into the aisle, but still if there was an aggressive horse running at horses walking by, you had to watch if your horse ran that you gave it room by you or stay ahead of it.
8’ is a narrow space to be leading an antsy horse.
Other than that, it worked fine to get horses into and out of stalls and groom in the aisle.
We had a vacuum hanging from the ceiling and a long hose from it.
It took some horses a bit to get used to that, but all did.
If 8’ is all the room you have, it is not ideal, but it will work ok.
Any less would start to be questionable, maybe even not really safe if a longer aisle.
If you consider what would happen to you if the horse backed up, stepped sideways towards you, tried to turn around on top of you, balked then rushed ahead trying to pass you, etc., I think you have the answer you need. Good luck rationalizing anything less than 10 feet.
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Currently I have a run in style barn with 3 stalls in the back and an open space in the front. Right now I’m doing morning and evening chores around loose horses. I have been nearly run over several times while trying to get into a stall with my horse trying to get in at the same time. I’ve had this set up for 4 years. Because of this I now have my horse trained to verbal cues and hand signals. An 8’ aisle will be a godsend compared to what I deal with now.
There was a thread not long ago where a lot of people said anything less than a 12’ aisle would put them off of buying a property.
”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹”‹Not sure if you’re planning on staying forever or not, but good to consider that a narrow aisle will impact resale potential, too.
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I just want to add that an 8’x10’ stall is TINY. I would never build any stall smaller than 10’x10’, even for ponies. They are just too useless for most purposes and you end up with an extremely dirty stall. Forget wet spot, the whole stall will be wet if it houses a horse for any length of time. I would skip the covered porch and have two 12’x12’ stalls and one 12’x10’ stall with a nice 12’ aisle.
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It’s for our donkey. Fun fact about donkeys is they poop in one pile. He’s pretty tiny and his stall is always super neat with one poop pile and one pee spot both off to the side
I just don’t understand the purpose of a 12’ aisle unless your using that as your crossties. I already have a large space for crossties I just need to get them to that space. In addition to the barn addition we’re also rebuilding the house so pretty much plan on staying here a long time unless I strike it rich in which case I’m not really concerned with how much it sells for
Safety. The purpose is safety.
A 6’ wide aisle isn’t safe. An 8’ wide aisle is only marginally better. If a horse loses its shit in a narrow aisle while you’re with it, the risk of getting hurt is pretty significant. They’re also trappy, so you’re increasing the chance a horse is going to have a big ugly reaction to something.
It’s also easier to work in a wider aisle. Turning around a horse in an 8’ aisle is a tight squeeze. I have a 10’ aisle and there are times (like when the farrier is here, with his tools) that I walk the horse outside to turn around.
Also consider what else will be in the aisle. Will you have blankets on bars on the stall fronts? Muck forks or baskets waiting? Brooms and shovels? That all takes away from your width.
You’ve got width in your overhang that you can add to your stalls and aisle. An 8’ overhang just doesn’t do much of anything, anyway.
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