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Barn/Shedrow Options

I’ve been saving and getting designs in mind for a while and the plan was to build a shedrow barn or something similar for my horses this year; however, the lumber prices are giving me pause right now. I have two horses and I guess a run-in would be a minimum need, but I’m not sure what to do. I’ve been looking at metal buildings tonight as well as some of the pre-fab that you can have hauled into your site. Am I missing anything? Do any of you have any ideas on how to get a permanent shelter set up? I was hoping to keep my initial budget around $5k (willing to do much of the work outside of framing myself) but now I’m hearing of people who are getting outrageous quotes on small decks on their homes due to the lumber prices.

I have a 20x20 concrete workshop that has power to it that I have used in a pinch, but with my 2 guys being 17hh and 15hh there’s not enough room for two 12x12 stalls. Hay storage is currently in temporary sheds. It’s not a good setup. Help?

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I’ve seen some interesting metal carports that come attached to a “workshop room” aka your new feed/tack room.

5k might be a bit tight to get a building, site prep and interior finishes.

What are your must haves right now and what can you wait to get later?

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Would something like this from GoBob work, two sheds in an L:

https://www.gobobpipe.com/horsesheds.htm

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lenapesadie, I’m in a fairly temperate part of KY in relation to winter with not much annual snowfall nor super low temps, so really I’d be wanting a roof for now lol. Basic shade, somewhere to hang fans, etc. If I could get basic framework, hubby ad I would be able to do the rest as time went on.

Bluey, that would definitely work, I’ll go look at the site now.

I’ve been building on mondohomz dot com tonight and have gotten a few metal buildings mocked up that would work, but I wondered about the heat coming down off the roof, and the ability to insulate it.

If you can hang in there, lumber prices are dropping fast and furiously.


From the link:
Lumber prices in the futures market, for example, are down more than 45 percent from their peak, slipping below $1,000 for the first time in months. That’s still high — between 2009 and 2019, prices averaged less than $400 per thousand board feet — but the sell-off has been gaining momentum over the last few weeks. The price has fallen in 11 of the last 12 trading sessions, including a 0.5 percent drop to settle at $900.80 on Friday, according to FactSet data.

With pre-fab buildings of any construction, don’t forget to factor in the cost of shipping. It can cost thousands of dollars.

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Texarkana, that was one thing I had been thinking about. I don’t want to jump in and do this now and then be kicking myself next year if lumber prices are significantly lower. So if I can just get some shade for now, and get them out of the garage/workshop into a bigger area, then I’d be fine with waiting.

We had barely 14h quarter horses growing up. I look at that 20x20 and think “I could have put 2 nice 10x10 stalls in there if I didn’t have such large horses now” :wink:

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I hear you! As a temporary solution, your 17h guy could probably squish, though. My current stalls are 10x10 and my 16.2h mare is fine with room to spare. Not ideal, but it works (it’s a 100 year old barn that I rent and I can’t expand anything). A lot of show grounds only have 10x10 stalls, even those hosting FEI shows!

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You might explore a carport. I have one and am pretty happy with it. I hung screens on the sides to increase shade, which was very inexpensive. My site prep and rocks (limestone screenings) ran @3.5k but possibly you could get it cheaper if you need less fill dirt and/or willing to skip rocks. I used corral panels to set up stalls. I’ve greatly appreciated the flexibility they provide (you can move them around to make different shapes etc). I went “all out” and got a pretty large one, 30x45 with 12 ft sidewalls. The horses have about half for their stalls/shelter and I have my stuff, hay/feed, mucking tools, tractor, horse trailer and a “aisle” on the other half. It’s not going to be featured in Southern Living or anything, but it’s quite functional. I’m pleased as punch.

I investigated those pre built Amish barns. I’m not close enough to any of the producers for it to be a viable option for me. The other drawback was the roof height. There was some issue regarding roofs over 8’ and their ability to deliver and I wasn’t comfortable with an 8 ft sidewall. It’s too hot here, FL, to have such a low roof. I thought it might be a safety hazard. They are super cute though. I think there is a builder in TN, Sunset perhaps?

I’ve got big horses too and vastly prefer larger stalls.

Random online selection

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  1. Like @Texarkana I also heard the price of lumber is tumbling- that was a jaw dropper because lumber never goes down once it goes up, lol

  2. Whatever you buy that is “portable” be sure to have it lagged down good and solid, so the winds don’t carry it into the next county.

  3. Another consideration might be to put the barn shell up using metal siding. For now you can buy pipe panels and build stalls with them.

I did that 18 years ago and the stalls are still pipe panels because my barn is only 24 X 40 and they let the air circulate a lot better than solid stalls.

An advantage of pipe panels stalls is you can change things (well hubby can:) if you’re not happy with the set up::

3.1. The solid stall walls have hardwood slabs attached to them that are four feet high.

3.2. We put 3/4” marine plywood on the bottoms of the pipe panels and their doors to keep legs from going thru.

  1. We had a professional run electric under ground from the house to the barn. DH then did all the wiring inside the barn.

Buy a big breaker box, even if your barn is small:)

I swear I posted fotos on here after the update but I can’t see the icon for posting them anymore or I would post one of the stalls to give you an idea.

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Thank you guys! You’ve given me a lot to think about :). This all started earlier today with me looking into building/buying 2 of these and slowly morphed into much more. The reviews on these tops are a mixed bag:

I haven’t bought one… have considered it at times. However, I think it was here on COTH I read the advice (that I will attempt to badly requote):

“If you read 100 reviews, 99 are positive and 1 person says their tarp structure became a kite, you can expect yours to become a kite in the first wind storm.”

With that said, one of my friends from a past life, who I only keep up with through social media these days, has that exact structure. I’ve only seen it in pictures and have never asked her about it, but I can say it’s been standing awhile. It’s her only shelter.

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Thank you all for your input and suggestions :). DH and I have been looking at all our options for several days now, and we’ve decided to make use of the existing 20x20 garage/workshop area. The solid black lines in this mockup are the solid block walls. Dotted lines are the proposed stall walls. Red lines are existing windows:

Pros:

  • Concrete block/concrete floor
  • Interior roofline that slopes from approx. 30’ tall in the rear to 10’ tall in the front
  • Electricity in it already, with a large overhead light/none of the outlets would be inside the stalls
  • Four awning-style 4’W x 3’H windows (2 on each side) that provide great airflow.

We removed the old 1970’s fiberglass garage door last year (it was so deteriorated that it needed a haircut!) so there’s a 16’ opening facing south. I’d have to have half of this covered by a side stall wall.

We’re looking at the galvanized stall kits here: https://horsestalls.com/galvanized-steel-stall-kits.htm

They’re currently on sale and I have enough 2x6 lumber from originally building walls in the garage for the original bad weather run-in to fill two fronts and the middle. I’d have to buy enough to fill one side, but that wouldn’t be too ridiculous. By building 2 12x10 stalls, they’d have as much room as I could give them, which would leave me an 8’ wide walkway in front of the stalls and it’s approx. 20’ from the main pasture gate. I would need to buy 4 more stall mats (I have 16 already) to cover the floor and we’d fabricate wire covers for the 2 windows that are in the stalls.

With my schedule, this would allow me to put them up in the morning before I go to work and then let them out when I get home in the evening. Reverse for winter. The stalls could be moved and put in a barn when/if lumber comes down and I can build what I want. Any suggestions/ideas/concerns that maybe I’m not thinking of? I want to thank everyone for all the help so far!

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If horses are quiet and get along well, you may not need higher walls/grills.
5’ between horses and in front could work fine.
Those may work for now, until you can build a regular barn:

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Do they get along? Do they really need stalls? I’d be tempted to leave the big opening, build a wall from the back of the building out into the yard and around to attach at the the corner, and make it a dry lot + run-in setup.

I have a Klene Pipe run-in that is over a decade old now. If I had things to do over, I would have several of these, and would not have built the pole barn.
101217_4289 by Wendy, on Flickr

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I think the garage where the stalls would go is 20’ from the pasture gate/fence?

Would it be possible to use some panels to make the garage accessible to the pasture as a shed, for now?

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They do get along, very well actually. I used to have it set up so they could go in and out as they wanted to; my biggest issue is that the 15h guy is a super fast eater (and a fatty) and the 17h guy is very passive and eats super slow – and is one who needs extra calories. The 15h will gobble all his hay and then go eat with 17h. So I would separate 17h and feed him and then go back out in an hour and let him back out.

I have limited pasture (2 acres) and feed hay year round. I was thinking that by building stalls and shutting them in I could hang my slow feed hay bags, feed their supplements/hard feed, put them under the fans (15h hogs those too), and give my pasture 10 hours of rest each day. Basically their turnout is for mental stimulation, a very small amount of grazing, and movement.

Have you considered putting them on a narrow track, often called a Paddock Paradise? I get the problem with separating them for feeding. I have a 3yo pony who excels at competitive eating.

But a 10x12 stall is a very small space to lock them in for 8-10 hours. I would still leave that 24x20 space open to a dry lot for both of them, and figure out how to get extra calories into the big guy.

How about instead of a solid wall, you put a 12’ gate across? Then lock the big one in there to eat his extra ration as needed. When you open the gate flat against the wall, they can share the large area.

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Would it make much difference if I had an open wall between the two horses and in the fronts of the stalls? Like in Bluey’s examples?

I did a PP type setup about a year ago but due to flooding (we lose bottom half of pasture during heavy rains) and 17h guy being a buddy sour spaz, I finally gave up after 6 or 7 months.

When I had this set up as a run-in, they each had a 10x12 space (had a wall down the middle) and it worked well with one exception – when 15 got finished eating and left the shed, every. single. time. 17 freaked out and left his food to pace the fenceline. It doesn’t matter to the big idiot that they’ll graze on opposite sides of the pasture regularly – several hundred feet apart – but let me put a cross fence up and 15 get 10 feet away and the world is coming to an end. :woman_facepalming:

I think for your situation you’ll be happy with your mock up. Definitely go with sliding door stall fronts given your front aisle width. I like my grills in the bottom of my sliders. Cost is a bit more but the components are modular and reconfigurable if you build later. Helps so much with air flow and just makes the space seem bigger. I have a similar set up in a 24x24 renovated little barn. I added and overhang and run outs off the back. It’s a great set up as many here attest to, most valuable during awful winter weather to have an enclosed front aisle and back overhang. But, your proposed set up looks very serviceable given your needs. I had 10x12’ stalls with a 10’ aisle in another barn I renovated and worked just fine even for horses the size of your bigger guy. Like yours they got a lot of turnout and that makes a difference.

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Any design feature that allows the horse to put his neck out of the footprint of the stall increases the livable space I think. Lots of horses live in stalls 12 plus hours a day. Let’s not make perfect the enemy of good.

What I would recommend would be some kind of stall design that can easily be removed / reconfigured / moved to a new space in the future.

I have a similar problem with one horse that needs to eat more but gets too anxious to eat if the other horse leaves the area after he is done eating. So I feel your pain.

The great news is that your concrete block building should be very sturdy and fire resistant!

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