Building a Farm

[JumpWithPanache]

DH and I bought five acres and are building a house (siding goes on this week!) with relatively near-term plans to build a small barn for my two plus option for a boarder. We are in hot and humid SE Virginia and I think I’ve settled on an L-shaped shedrow. Interested on anyone’s thoughts with the draft I’ve come up with, especially if you have a shedrow already.

Notes that aren’t captured on the screen shot:

• 14x14s will have runs off the back
• each aisle end will have sliding doors to close off the aisle
• the overhang will have roll-up heavy duty vinyl (think restaurant outdoor patio) that can be rolled down for the few days a year that we get extreme cold
• small water heater will go in the tack room
• will have electric and water to each stall
• house is close enough, so not putting in a bathroom
• feed room may be a single door vice double
• only storing a day or two worth of hay in the barn, rest will be in a separate building
• I don’t know how many support posts will be needed for the overhang
• planning concrete floors for at least aisle, possibly also for stalls with mats over top

Thanks!

[JB]

What’s your thought on concrete for the stalls? How long will horses be in there? For any significant time in there, concrete needs good mats and lots of bedding.

How big are the runs? How many acres of actual pasture?

It would be nice to have the partition between the 2 14x14 stalls removable in case you need it for a layup.

Depending on how the walls of the “inside” of the L are constructed, consider making built-in shelves in a few places to store some smaller things you use often.

[Simkie]

Is there a reason why you don’t want three stalls all in a line, next to each other, instead of having a smaller stall separately? How many horses are you planning on keeping? What’s the climate like?

Having to retrieve hay (and bedding?) from another building every day sounds onerous, especially if you’re in a place with weather. You might consider an area where you can store a week or two in the barn.

Building out the overhang so it squares off your barn (like, have it extend over your text block in your pic) could be a really nice perk for your vet & farrier. They could back their truck up & have it covered.

Will your wash rack have a back wall?

[luvmyhackney]

I have a standard aisle barn and a shed row barn. For your overhang posts, make sure to cover them with something; horses will chew, lean, scratch, and do all the weird things on them. Mine do.

Add a half bath if possible - I promise you won’t realize how useful it is until its needed and its cheap to add in the scheme of things.

I would put all the stalls together if possible and then keep the office/feed room on one side together. You don’t want a window facing into the washrack. They leak, glass and horses don’t mix.

[Simkie]

Oh, duh, I see you addressed the climate & head count questions in your original post.

If a boarder is in the plans, def put in a bathroom.

I’d really go for three equal sized stalls, all with runs, in that case, too. A stall that’s only open at the front is going to be tough in a hot & humid climate.

[trubandloki]

Adding a bathroom will require a sewer connection of some sort, and that is not always easy, so if you are going that route, start looking into that aspect of it.

I agree that moving hay/bedding on a daily basis is not fun. If the building you are storing it in is any distance away, you will want to have more storage in this area.

Where is the manure pile/storage/disposal going to be?

You might want to plan on some overhang/roof over the side of the stalls with the attached turn out areas. It keeps the weather out of your stall/bedding a little better.

[frugalannie]

My main suggestions involve siting the barn on your property. I’m in New England, so we made sure our barn aisle runs east/west to get good breezes in the summer, and that we’re as protected as possible from the north, northeast whence come our worst storms. (I looked at very old barns in the area to get orientation ideas). So which way do prevailing winds blow? How about storms, when they occur? Where will water runoff from your roof and/or the surrounding area go? What will access be for farriers and vets?

I’m more enamored of the idea of dutch doors on a stall then the practicalities of them. I worked at a farm that had 30 “Virginia” stalls arranged around a quadrangle for the horses that were summer residents. The fourth side was a proper New England barn with 10 stalls for the winter residents. The Virginia stalls had dutch doors which we only closed when the horses were gone. Even then the doors would sometimes pull their latches off an swing in the wind. And if we had horses out there and an early snow, we’d have to shovel the roof off to be able to swing the doors open. But you’re in a different climate so you’ve got different considerations.

[LCDR]

Having a toilet in the barn is a priority for me. That walk to the house, in my case 250 feet, is just too far. Besides, your farrier and vet will appreciate it on those occasions when their needs are urgent. It is worth every penny to me, and mine included a separate septic tank and field. But there is always the pee in a stall option if you can’t swing the cost.

Electrical outlets for each stall for fans and maybe for heated water buckets. And don’t forget about electrical outlets for the farrier’s fan in the summer, and the vet’s xray and ultrasound equipment.

You’ll want hot water too. If you install a tank heater make sure it is accessible for service. Mine is in a space over the toilet cubicle ceiling, and getting to it is a real chore.

Consider having the wash stall floor pitched so that the drain isn’t in the center of the floor, but near the back wall. Just my personal preference. I’d rather have water puddle up somewhere other than underfoot while I’m bathing a horse and hair and sand starts to block the drain grid.

Now for lighting. I ended up adding triple the number of LED fixtures that the barn builder planned, and the illumination is now about perfect. My farrier is happy; he complains about upscale barns with chandeliers where he either has to shoe by brailleAnd or take the horses outside into the sun. My lighting allows him to shoe my herd in the barn aisle after sundown , which is great for him during those short winter days.I also lust for an infrared heater mounted over the wash stall.

[endlessclimb]

@trubandloki

You might want to plan on some overhang/roof over the side of the stalls with the attached turn out areas.

This. This is top 5 biggest regrets on my construction.

[JB]

I’ve had exterior Dutch doors for 14 years, never had an issue with anything coming undone and top or bottom doors swinging, and this includes a few Cat 1 hurricanes and more than a few tropical storms.

Will the DDs be open or closed when the horses are in the attached runs? If open, so they can come and go in/out of stalls as they like, make sure to install heavy duty eye hooks to latch the doors open, so there’s never any situation where a door is closing on a body part

Yes to the wash rack drain in the middle back, it’s just so so much easier to get rid of that water. I’m assuming the ground slopes away from that side of the barn even if just a little?

[LCDR]

I didn’t pick them, but my barn builder installed magnetic latches on my exterior Dutch doors. I really like them. A plus is that on windy days with the doors open there is no back and forth movement creating noise like happens with some other types of latches. To release the magnetic latches I do have to pull back on the door with a jerk and while using most of my body weight, so the magnets are quite strong and in 10 years none have popped free in the wind, including during Hurricane Helene.

Now, if I could find a way to keep the center aisle sliding stall doors from banging in the wind, my barn would be virtually silent.

[Texarkana]

I have no problem with Dutch doors, but I had the flukiest thing happen to me the other day.

My horse was rubbing her butt on the door and lifted it off one hinge and bent the other hinge in a manner that completely prevented me from being able to unlock the latch to let her out. There was a momentary panic about how I was going to get her out of the stall. Luckily, brute force with a hammer and my foot was able to get the door back on the hinge enough to jiggle open the latch.

This isn’t to discourage you from your Dutch door choice. It was just one of those moments where horses find a way to create chaos for no reason.

I like shed rows. I have one (mine’s not my favorite, it was here when I bought the place). If you haven’t thought about this already, consider the prevailing wind/weather. Your overhangs become useless in a hurry if wind/rain is blowing in.

Also, put in more airflow than you think you need. My shed row gets surprisingly HOT compared to a traditional barn with an aisle.

[LCDR]

I did have one Dutch door problem. My big draft was outside scratching his his butt on the upper door while it was open and latched back. He managed to lift it off the hinge pins and dropped it on the ground. It’s a heavy metal door with bars on both sides protecting glass in the center. I needed the tractor loader and chains to lift it back up and onto the hinge pins.The only other time I have seen him bolt that quickly was the day he was straddling a high volume pop-up irrigation sprinkler when the timer activated it.

Now all my Dutch doors have hefty zip ties strapping the hinge parts together so only Superhorse will be able to lift the doors up.

[StormyDay]

I have a 3ft overhang on the back of my stalls and it’s so worth it. Keeps the sideways rain out of the stalls, gives the horses somewhere to stand when they only want to be near the barn and not in it, and when it’s pouring or snowing and you step outside to close a door or something you stay dry.

Depending on your land a L shaped barn can be good or bad for airflow. I am in an area with a constant breeze, so in the summer my center isle barn acts like a big fan and is constantly blowing air through it. But if your summers are more stagnant, that won’t work and a shed row or L shaped barn is a better choice. I’d go out on a hot day (like tomorrow, since it’s going to be 90+ degrees) and really feel if you have a breeze and which way it’s coming from.

[Simkie]

@StormyDay

I have a 3ft overhang on the back of my stalls and it’s so worth it.

Is that supposed to be 30?

I have an 8 foot overhang on one side and reeeeaaaaaally wish it were 12. Or deeper! 8 is better than nothing but not nearly as useful as the deeper overhang at our previous barn.

[Libby2563]

@endlessclimb

@trubandloki

You might want to plan on some overhang/roof over the side of the stalls with the attached turn out areas.

This. This is top 5 biggest regrets on my construction.

Third that. Seemed like a bit of a splurge at the time, but would have been sooooo useful and is now more or less impossible to add due to the ceiling height.

[Bluey]

Ideal barn for 3 horses most anywhere I think is a center aisle, oriented best with the local geography, stalls on the S or SW or SE with an overhang and individual runs and storage/tack room/feed room on the other side of the aisle.
The main idea about this is, you want a barn to protect from the environment, so you horses, farrier, vet, clients, anyone using it will be covered and out of the worst weather and that kind of barn design provides for that.

When we used to put numbers to different barn models, that model’s budget was close to any other in costs, do put figures together to see what will give you more bang for your bucks.
If you are going shed row because you think is cheaper, it may not be that different.
With a barn you can close from the elements, you can build it as open air or tight as your region requires.
A shed row is too open for that, many end up adding tarps or curtains to keep the elements out.
We had some and had to do just that.

After you consider all reasons and build your barn, whatever you end up with, at least you will be happy that you did the best with what information and resources you had.

When reality of budget and location and other concerns enters, that design can be altered as needed.

50+ years of working in, designing and checking barns and talking to barn owners and managers behind those opinions.

[StormyDay]

No lol, most builders do 8 or 12 inches as the standard. My barn is about 50 years old, it had an addition put on for the stalls so the furthest out we could go was 3ft before the ceiling was getting too low. My stalls are all on the north side so it blocks the sun well in the summer and provides protection from rain and snow in the winter.

[Demerara_Stables]

Definitely do the bathroom for the boarder/vet/farrier/when you’re soaking an abscess in the wash rack and you really have to go.

Shed rows are nice but being able to close up the barn is SO important.

Yes to the overhang over the exterior doors!

You can get sliding dutch doors - nothing to swing open or closed but the benefits of the windows.

You didn’t want to be moving hay every couple of days. I have a 12x12 feed room with more than enough space for hay for 5 horses for a week - the rest is in the hay shed.

Lighting is crucial. I did super bright lights for working and dimmable, warmer lights for hanging out and night check (the horses really hate those 15,000 lumen LEDs at midnight ).

If your back wall allows it, I’d slope the wash rack to the back and leave a gap under the wall with an open “drain” outside the barn. You don’t want the drain in the middle. Also I’d plan on rubber pavers for the wash rack - you’ll have to account for their height when pouring concrete. The pavers are shockingly grippy even when soaking wet, I love them.

Extra outlets and hose bibs everywhere. I didn’t do hose bibs on all 4 corners outside my barn and I regret it. I have outlets between each stall on the front of the stalls, in my wash/grooming stall, and at the ends of the barn inside and outside. I’ve used them all.

[Texarkana]

I’m curious, how many people actually have bathrooms in their barn?

Of all the barns I boarded at in my life, and that is A LOT (like I got to 15 and stopped counting), maybe 2 had bathrooms? I really only recall one with a bathroom, but I’m assuming another had one only because it was so posh. A couple others had port-a-potties.

Then if you throw in all the barns I’ve worked at, which ranges from backyard places to absolute top of horse sport, bathrooms are still hit or miss.

Insisting someone needs a bathroom for a single boarder or for the off chance the vet/farrier needs it seems like a pretty big luxury in my mind.