Barn and stall design for insecure horse?

[mvp]

The barn planning continues and I am once more in need of COTH’s deep collective experience.

I need to build a small, 4 stall barn. Ideally, all stalls are on the same side of the building. They will all have “porches” behind them and perhaps small runs that lead to one or two common sacrifice paddocks. The trick is to build for 1. Ventilation and horses being able to see each other; and 2. A mare who really doesn’t want to share a wall with another horse.

So I thought of building those 4 stalls in a line with perhaps a stall-sized tie area between stalls 2 and 3. And/or an 8’-wide slot between stalls 3 and 4. Both “non-stall areas” could have metal bars on the top half. The 8’ slot might be a place for equipment like wheelbarrows and such.

The other option is to put this stall on the end of the barn, but that makes the building expensive or the site plan hinky. Best option for the horse would be to live in a stall on the opposite side of the aisle of a center aisle barn, but that really screws up the paddock system.

My question for those of you with horses like mine:

Do you think that 8’ distance between the stall next door is enough? Do you guys have any other ideas?

Do you think being able to see the other horse will help?

I would set up this mare’s stall and any horse next to it so that they were fed in opposite corners.

Thank you for your help. As a boarder, I have had very, very few opportunities to try out different arrangements to see what works for this mare. I can tell you more about what works/doesn’t if that would help.

[Bluey]

Horses and their likes and dislikes are what they are and change without notice also when arrangements change.
We have learned to go with whatever mood the horse is at the moment, when it comes to making them happy with their living arrangements and neighbors.

Not long ago a mare in a pen next to an older gelding that seemed to mind his own business took offense to him and tore the solid board fence on solid pipe frame between pens one night, kicking at him.

Could you possibly fix standard four stalls with runs off each one, then one corner stall have also an extra door and pen on the one short side?
That one stall then can have two doors.
One for a horse going into the outside pen by others.
Or out another door in the short part of the L, into a pen separated by that regular pen from others.

You then have five pens along that one side of the barn, the last pen is longer than the others, along the outside of the barn and has access from the short side of the barn into that one end stall.
By adding that extra door and fifth pen it lets your barn itself be standard four stall barn with four runs for less added cost than making the barn larger.

Hope that explains this sufficiently?

Most stalls are 12’ and so the runs end up also 12’ wide and that is a bit too narrow for horses that like their space from other horses.
Our runs are at least 16’ wide, but not everyone can make them that width, the barn then gets too long.

[Texarkana]

How many horses does your mare live with now? How many horses will be at the new barn?

I ask because along the same lines of what Bluey said, horses can change when their living situation dramatically changes. When I moved my horses to our first small farmette, they became incredibly herd-bound and dependent on each other. Horses who previously were 100% indifferent to each other became inseparable.

So I might not go too crazy with designing something unique for this specific mare until you see how she acts in her new environment. I’d stick with a traditional design, or design for flexibility if you can. I like the idea of a small grooming area or storage area between the the stalls. 8’ separation seems plenty adequate to me, but I don’t know your horse.

[4horses]

Will you have a feed or tack room?

I think, if it were my property i would run a sacrifice paddock completely around the back and sides of the barn. Make it big enough that a tractor will fit through the gate should you need to add dirt or remove manure. This would be one large paddock, if you need to cross fence it i would use electric fencing so it is portable. That way you can decide if you eventually want a more permanent fence or not.

The front of the barn would be where cross ties are for grooming and saddling. You might want a 6-12 ft overhang for that. Perhaps a wash rack area in front as well. This gives you storage in front of the barn as well, or an extra area if you eventually get another horse.

As for storage for wheel barrows, you certainly could add a space between the stalls. It definitely would reduce stall arguments.

If you really want ventilation, i would not build solid walls. You could run 2 or 3 boards at chest height, but leave an opening from the boards down. This way a shop fan set up at one end can blow through the entire barn at once. No solid stall doors- use those small metal gates. You can also use 2 sliding boards with a pin lock instead of stall doors. I like stalls that open on both ends, but i can live without that feature.

If it were me, the grumpy horse would get her own stall on the end with a solid wall and an individual fan. In the storage space next to her i would put a drum fan. The rest of the barn would be open like described for the best possible ventilation.

i don’t see a benefit in adding small runs. To me, that is going to create an area where manure will accumulate and possibly mud. If you need to keep everyone separated, that would be time for portable electric fencing. As for the sacrifice area, i would make it a long rectangular area with the stalls on the narrow end of the rectangle.

My horses are very cleanly in their sacrifice area. All manure is deposited in the far back of the paddocks, while food and water is up front. Making your sacrifice area a long retangle, will help keep the manure farther away from the barn. Even my pony (who was a piggy) has somehow gotten with the program and now deposits his messes in the back.

By biggest mistake was making the sacrifice areas too small. You really want it big enough to keep the horses farther from the manure, and you also want that manure spot to be somewhere sunny.

My horses all have individual sacrifice areas just because between the hard and easy keepers, and the bully, it was difficult to keep everyone together. Shade is another issue. One paddock has nice shade in the morning but is sweltering in the afternoon, and the other paddock is the opposite.

If you want or need shade, plant something now.

Consider drainage. I would add fill before having the barn installed. Get someone with a tractor to spread the fill over your sacrifice area at a slight slope. You want everything to drain away from the barn. If you do this correctly the manure (and excessive rain) will wash downhill and away from the barn. Obviously this isn’t always in the budget, but if you can afford to do it, do it.

[seabreeze]

I like full walls between stalls and a stall door into the aisleway that allows them to hang their heads over the door (either a regular dutch or half door or a door with the cutout bars for head on top. That way horses have their own “space” without being bothered by neighbors but still have the security of knowing they have a neighbor by hanging heads over the stall door.

[NancyM]

If a horse WANTS privacy, full walls on the stall should be helpful. Not knowing your land layout, it’s hard to give much in the way of valuable advice, but having one stall at the end of the barn, and not having communicating fences on that paddock seems to best idea to me. So that your sensitive horse can see the other three horses down the barn aisle when in her stall, and can see the from her paddock, but does not have direct contact with them, if that is what she likes. If that doesn’t work with the lay of your land, it may not be what you can choose, OR you can make some changes in your ideas. Happy building!

[Wonders12]

Flexibility is ideal when building a barn. If you have the footprint, I would definitely do 5 stalls, without a front on stall #4. This empty “stall” can be a grooming area, hay storage, equipment storage, etc. However, if/when you want that 5th stall, it’s there.

That being said… I had a barn with a 6ft or so gap between the regular stalls and foaling stall. It was awesome. It had a door to the outside for loading in hay and grain and was an out of the way place to hang winter blankets and store pitchforks. It was definitely useful! (However, all of that and more could have been achieved in a full stall size area too.)

[TCA_Arabians]

The two end stalls in our barn face-out at 90 degrees from the other stalls. Each has a run out with an overhang. Mom designed it that way for the stallions. We also have feed/supply/tack rooms between stalls. Any of those concepts would separate your mare from the others. Are you building a wood barn? Have you ever had this horse isolated before? Did she still kick out? Has she ever been stalled so that she has a run-out off her stall and can go in and out at will? Is there a possibility she just doesn’t like to be confined at night? Just suggesting questions for you to think through before you design a barn for little Miss Grumpy.

[Nestor]

I think what I like best is the tie stall between stalls 2 and 3.

Most important thing in building your barn: don’t limit yourself if you don’t have to. Creating a tie stall, assuming it is the same width as the other stalls, means you can easily turn it into a stall if you need to, even just by putting a gate across the front. It could always be storage, too.

Don’t plan necessarily for the horses you have. They change, as has been pointed out. I’d be willing to bet that maresy who doesn’t like neighbors will chill out at least a little by being at your private barn, assuming she’s at a busier barn now, possibly with less turnout than what she’ll have at home.

Does she need to have actual space between her and the other horses? Or does she just not want to see them in her stall? If the latter, I’d build conventional stalls with bars, for ventilation, and just put up a temporary cover over the bars (plywood, for example, or a nicer version) for the last stall so that if she doesn’t need it, or you eventually have a different horse, you aren’t stuck with a “weird” stall.

Another idea. If your barn is a center aisle barn, rather than an enclosed shed row, you can put a “stall” on the other side, at whatever end won’t be your main entrance, and then put her paddock off of the short side of the barn. Yes, you’ll need to have a gate across the end of the aisle, but it gives you that extra space as well.

[Libby2563]

@Wonders12

Flexibility is ideal when building a barn. If you have the footprint, I would definitely do 5 stalls, without a front on stall #4. This empty “stall” can be a grooming area, hay storage, equipment storage, etc. However, if/when you want that 5th stall, it’s there.

Agree with this, if you have the space and money. Your mare won’t live forever (sorry) and if you have to sell I think a 5-stall barn would be more attractive than a 4-stall-plus-mini-aisle barn. I have a barn like you describe with stalls on one side (facing east so they stay cooler) and individual runs, and it works great. I do wish I had done 4 stalls instead of 3 though.

[BeeHoney]

My advice is to do solid dividers between ALL of your stalls. Assuming properly sized windows and stall fronts/doors that allow for air flow, there is no reason that this would impede ventilation.

It’s presumptuous to assume that most horses are comfortable next to any other particular horse as they eat and sleep. Horses derive comfort from being in the vicinity of other horses, but they also are very sensitive about their personal space and can be stressed out from being trapped next to a dominant or aggressive horse, especially since stalls are often a place where horses are fed. Similarly, a dominant mare does not want to have to watch some young chippy slurping her grain in the stall next door.

Sure you may have some horses that get along great, but in that case the problem goes the other way. With a small horse property, one of your biggest problems is going to be horses forming excessive attachments to one another. Using time in stalls as some healthy time separated from friends is important to maintaining horses that are able to be separated from one another without undue commotion.

Lastly, as much as you might picture your current horses as being your forever horses, things always change. Having solid walls gives you ultimate flexibility in putting horses where you need them to be without worrying if a new horse is going to harass someone else (or be harassed) all night (or day) long.

Runs are very popular. I’m not a fan. First of all, having horses up against your barn means a lot of wear and tear on the side of your barn. The side of your barn had better not have metal or wood siding, because it will get ripped off or wrecked, and worse case scenario the horses will slice themselves up on it. Secondly, runs focus manure and urine deposits right next to your barn. Or, if you leave the stalls open, your stalls will simply be used as toilets. You better have great drainage, spend $$ on proper grading and fabric/stone layers, and be quick to keep things clean. I’d recommend instead having some smaller paddocks not far from the barn.

[Bluey]

I disagree with no runs off the stalls.

Sure, they are not perfect, but horses get to move around so much more and the labor is way less than cleaning stalls and moving horses back and forth to turnout paddocks.

Fine for a training barn, maybe, where you handle horses every day and have help doing the chores.
Not so good for a private barn where horses are not handled every single day and there are people there to do it every working hour of the day.

If someone doesn’t want to let a horse into the pen off the stall, keep the door closed.
For most horses, a run off the stalls is so much better for them than standing in a stall all the hours they then stand there if they depend on humans to get out of the stall and back.

As for solid sides between stalls, many today build half solid, the front part where horses are fed, half open sides on the back and hang lighter mats or some other if they want to make them solid, the rare time a grumpy horse doesn’t like a neighbor.
It does help airflow to have as few solid walls in the inside of a barn as is sensible.

I do agree, build for flexibility, where you can manage every horse as that horse needs, some with solid walls, some with runs, etc.
Then watch your horses and be sensible about who you put next to each other.

More and more studies today show that horses are not as herd driven as we used to think.
They live in herds because of necessity, not because they prefer that to having their own space.
Ask any feral stallion that has to work hard to keep mares from running off.
The trade-off with letting horses live in our made-up herds, where they can’t really get away from other horses they may not care for and just have to adapt to the situation, ends up with maybe more stress and injuries that is worth.
We are the ones that get those ideas of what makes horses happier, but we don’t always get it right.

Just keep an open mind and don’t mind changing it as you learn what each horse really wants out of their lives in our environment.