We are just renovating our old barn to be specifically a foaling barn. We have a cement floor so we put on a nonslip epoxy (the kind used on aircraft carriers) which we love. We have made our stalls 18 x 14 feet welded steel with slider doors, of course, and a feeder window, which is big enough for them to comfortably put their heads through without ever feeling trapped. The wood is tongue/groove and it will be stained next spring (too cold now). Eventually, each stall will have it’s own window which I can open for ventilation/air flow. Each stall has it’s own individually switched CFB light with a dimmer so I can control the amount of light needed (dim if we’re just on foal watch, brighter when the mare is actively foaling). No point having all the lights on when we only need Stall A lit, so it’s an energy savings and doesn’t cost that much more to install. The aisleway has a separate bank of CFB lights. Every 2 stalls have a GFCI electrical outlet with cover in case the Vet needs a power source. I don’t allow extension cords around horses.
What’s really neat about our stalls is that when we’re finally done with the renovations, all stall cleaning will be mostly mechanized which is a HUGE timesaver. Each divider wall is wood in channels of welded steel frame. At the top of each wall are steel rollers and tracking. All we have to do is release the locker latches and the whole wall rolls out into the aisleway. The stalls become an open channel clear to an installed insulated door at the far end. We spend a few minutes pitchforking the bedding away from the walls so it makes a wide row in the middle, then open the exterior door, back the tractor down to the end of the row, and then lower the bucket and push/scoop the straw in one pass out to the manure pile. It literally takes 20 minutes to clean all the stalls down to bare mats.
So the routine is, every morning after the mares/foals go out, we poop scoop off the top which takes just a few seconds per stall. But, every 5 days we do a complete clean-out by tractor, throw down some deodarizer/sanitizer, then roll a round bale of straw down the row and we have instantly bedded the stalls in 2 feet of fresh straw. Slide the walls back in place and lock the latches. Voila.
I first saw this at my vet’s barn - 30 stalls, 20 minutes to clean. The barn doesn’t smell of ammonia and it just couldn’t be simpler.
You can’t do this if you use shavings as a bedding, but I hate shavings and won’t use it in my barn as I prefer to bed very deeply in wheat straw. Straw is cheap, easy to manage, readily available, composts in a couple months, and is regenerated yearly with each wheat crop. The greatest beauty about straw is all the moisture sinks to the bottom and the top always stays dry, so when the mares and foals lay down they’re never laying in wet pee and never get chilled.
We’re not finished yet, but I’ll be so pleased when it is!
