Thank you, that is an excellent point. Yes, there will just be stalls on one side of the aisle.
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I’m not sure why you would want to lock a horse in one place, other than for a short haul. Most horsemen have horses in box stalls that are large enough that the horse can move around some, and be comfortable standing, lying down, eating hay, etc. Horses hanging their heads in an aisle is a nuisance. Most newer barn designs have full or half screen sliders. An open aisle free of horse heads, doors, equipment, etc. is the safest environment.
And yet you were insisting that horses who could hang their heads out into the aisle couldn’t clear their nasal passages. They can. Just like how a horse riding in a box stall in a trailer can hang their head over the divider BUT STILL lower it’s head in the stall to snort. Crazy, huh?
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No, I did not. You are making things up. If a horse is loose, it just needs to step back and drop it’s head. Crazy, huh?
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It also matters if boarders will be using crossties in the aisle.Nothing worse than trying to groom and tack up and having to fight off the pushy stalled horse next to you! (Except fighting off a nasty horse lunging at you!) Oh! It is also an issue if you want to store anything on the stall front - the horses love chewing and throwing halters!
I think it would be great to have options for preventing heads in the aisle. My BO liked the horses to have the ability to put their heads out. Unfortunately, my horse had issues with that. He fussed with his neighbor, reached out to everyone passing, and couldnt settle in his stall. We finally put a solid sliding door on his stall and he is much happier (and so is everyone else!)
It also matters how the stalls are constructed for ventilation. In this barn, the stall walls do not go to the ceiling and there are windows. In yours, the dutch door will provide lots of ventilation. There is also the option to use a drop down grid or even a stall guard at times.
As far as the large stalls, I guess you need to know your market. If you are likely to have folks with large horses willing to pay more it could work. Have you had people asking for bigger stalls? I did board at one barn with a couple of large stalls. When nobody wanted to pay the extra for one the BO put her horse in it or left it empty. I dont think she was ever in the position in which a large was the only stall open and she had to decide whether to take in a boarder who only wanted to pay for a regular stall. It was handy for a badly injured horse at one time (but she didnt charge the extra out of sympathy for the owner).
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I am anti yoke doors unless you are 100% certain all horses in those stalls will not bite at passing horses/humans, aren’t cribbers (one I know in a yoke stall front has a bizarre tooth wear from the angle of how he cribs on it - requires regular dental attention), and aren’t food aggressive or otherwise territorial.
The trouble that making an aisle accessible to less than ideal equine personalities opens up is just not worth it IMO
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Do you read what you write? I can’t tell if you’re just a very clever troll or just very, very forgetful. This sure isn’t the first time you’ve directly contradicted yourself in a thread.
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THIS for sure. If you are taking in boarders, full doors.
Even if the stalls are only on one side, with a narrow walkway, full doors.
I think horses want to be able to see out and see each other, but there are other ways to design this.
If you didn’t have boarders, sure, do drop down yokes and your best judgment. I think even if you bought those doors and had a rule to have them closed for so long as boarders are there, well, yeah, I foresee a thread on the meanie BO and her stupid rules and/or why won’t my boarders follow my **** rules about heads in the aisle! 
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Hahaha. So true. All my current boarders are either 1. Eminently sensible or 2. Out of state retirees who appreciate what I do.
i am pretty tentative about adding more. I definitely want to add open bars between stalls for social issues (my other barn doesn’t have this so any horse who can deal could stay there). But I just really like the horse-friendly, max turnout, free choice hay and close care system I have. But a few more stalls will make the indoor make sense for tax purposes…and I have the money…ugh. Decisions!
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If you are doing bars in between low enough to socialize, I would suggest having a solid wall by the feeder. So every stall can have one barred side and one solid. I would be concerned that horses would feel too close to their neighbor when eating grain if they are fully visible and eating just on the other side!
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Those look very nice but IME tack in them gets very moldy! And spider-webby. 
Yep, seconding this. Or even a half solid or third solid wall by the feeder (4-6 feet solid, then bars.) A little privacy for eating but plenty open for socializing 
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I manage a farm with a very similar layout (stalls down the length of the indoor arena, but with a solid wall between arena and stall space). We have a narrow aisle, and unfortunately the whole thing is a metal structure with poor ventilation. There are small windows in the stalls, but the windows face west and have to be closed most of the winter and in any heavy rain. The stalls have full wood dividers with fronts that are half solid/half bars and sliding doors. We leave the stall doors open with just stall guards up as much as possible to make the situation more mentally horse-friendly, but the aisle is always dicey. Even the well-socialized, submissive horses eventually learn to be obnoxious to everyone walking past. I dream about full mesh stall fronts.
Dutch doors to the outside, facing east (or whatever your downwind direction is), would be a great design choice given your constraints. If I had that option, I would definitely choose full sliding doors into the aisle. I do bemoan the lack of aisle width on a regular basis, so make SURE you’ll be happy with the equipment you can fit in the aisle, your options to maneuver horses for vet/farrier (including when being evaluated for a severe lameness), and your options for removing a carcass from the outside should you lose one in a stall.
If you will have cross ties in the aisle then choose closed front stalls. Eight feet is not wide enough to pass a cross tied horse without one of the horses having to deal with the stalled horse hanging out.
I’ve boarded with that nasty horse who’s owner grooms in the stall with the door open and allows the lunge at passing horses. Of course it was always the other boarder’s fault for not loudly announcing they were coming down the aisle and waiting for the nasty horse’s owner to down tools and do whatever to prevent the attack. :rolleyes:
I have a ten foot aisle with drop down Dutch-tops. They are not yolks, the tops are fully barred. I also have in CAPS in my boarding contract that the management decides which door tops are dropped and when: and any horse who displays ANY aggression has the door top shut. Permanently.
I have not had any issues so far, since I can refer to the contract and barn rules, which are posted.
I think 8’ is narrow enough that any but the kindest ponies would probably need to have the top up. Timid horses are intimidated even by friendly noses reaching out to them.
I would never board somewhere with cross ties in an aisle, let alone an 8’ wide one. I would tack and groom in my stall before I’d use that sort of set up.
I personally detest tack lockers. They are very EXPENSIVE to build, get hugely cluttered, are hard to keep clean, attract mice, and IMO do not use space well.
My solution is to have a small separate “gear room”, with large industrial metal shelving from Home Depot. Each boarder gets one shelf per horse. the shelves are big enough to hold large Tupperware lidded containers, and brush totes, etc… Because the shelving is modular, I could repurpose this room if I want to.
My gear room is only 6’ X 12’ and has space for 12 boarder’s gear, plus a wall of hooks for helmet hanging. The door is a slider, so does not intrude into aisle.
The tack goes in a separate space, which doubles as a observation room. If it wasn’t in an OB room, I would still make a separate space: tack room/lounge. Mine has a small leather love seat, fridge and microwave.
Fascinating detail in this thread. A point I have yet to see raised: Houdini horses. I have one. His was boarded for awhile at a place where his stall had full bars that dropped to make it a dutch door. He’s a Standardbred - so, long neck, long head, rubbery lips, playful mind. He could reach farther than his neighbors and he managed to dismantle things that no prior occupant could reach – took down nearby cross ties, tore down some trim, got bored and chewed up lots of nearby wood.
So, at the barn I built for him at home, he has a permanent yoke. I thought that might keep him out of trouble by narrowing his range . . . but it has not. He can still reach his stall latch and open it, and the chain that’s the backup to the latch. My place looks like Fort Knox with backup latches. I like letting them have aisle access and don’t care about this, but, if I were building a new barn, I’d think about the Houdini’s out there . . . and probably go for drop down bars like my guy had at his last barn. And for him, I’d keep it shut!!
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If someone is going to have a way to open the top, consider other than those that drop down and stay hanging there.
I know of horses that hung a tooth there and broke their jaw while playing with those.
Any horse may do that if they catch those hanging bars just right.
Those with that little square mesh are ok, is the ones with bars that can cause trouble.
Those bars are maybe too narrow for a horse to stick a foot thru, but they sure can hang their bottom teeth on them if they lick on them just right.
I have not heard of that being a problem on the ones that open sideways, must be much more rare to be able to hook teeth at that angle than the ones hanging there.
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Our stalls (Hi-Hog) have a smaller rectangular opening that allows horses to put their head out, but not reach forward/out. They aren’t closable. I like them because the horses can look out but can neither reach out to bite the horses walking by, nor grab their blankets hanging on the doors.
The reason we didn’t get the drop down yoke doors are because it makes it hard to put blankets on the stall, which may or may not be a concern for you.
This - I can’t imagine solid doors with no window/grill facing the aisle, even with Dutch doors on the other side. I have both (solid bottom/grill top) and Dutch doors and I like them a lot.
If by “high-yoke doors” you mean those that are high enough that a horse can only peek his head over and not his neck, definitely go for those. I’ve known many horses that get anxious when locked in, but if they can see, they relax almost immediately. If high enough, they can look, but not stick their neck out, therefore they can’t bite at passersby (unless you’re right underneath them) or otherwise be an aisle nuisance - there just isn’t enough horse sticking out! My current boarding facility is like this and it’s great - the horses get the view and the aisle is unobscured by horse heads.
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