one thing that we did that I have never regretted was raise the floor to at least six inches above grade.
I just poured a concrete footer around the building then back filled with road base crushed stone the put the finished floor in place (used pavestones that were factory rejects due to color variations) then stall matted overlay… must be over a 100,000 pounds of material in the floor.
To date we have never had any rain water in the barn and there have at times had some real flooding events (recent 6.5 inches in three hours)
I like this idea, but I don’t think we have the room on the front of the main barn area because we only have a 12 foot length to deal with, plus, the roll up door needs to be framed, so we’re thinking a 10 foot wide roll up door. God forbid a horse dies inside and we need to get a tractor through the roll up doorway. Sad thing to think about, but you have to with horses.
Perhaps I should look at converting the left side door from a wide door that pulls out to a small door that pushes in. That would give me access to the feed area first, which makes sense. It’s a double door, so I could keep one side and frame out the other into a simple door.
The two side areas are cement, which helps, but, yeah, we discussed dumping additional rock into the middle area before doing the stalls. The kickboards will go in first, though. We’re using pressure treated 2x6x16 with supports every 4 feet. Is five feet high sufficient? Should be strong enough.
over the years we have had two horses die in their stalls (one naturally, on euthanized), we can not bury on our property but do have a local pet cemetery where we have a “family plot” (have six head buried there and we know just where each is) … but these people know how to remove a body in a dignified manor, explaining each step of what they are doing and why … they have always treated the carcass as if it were still alive. Removal is their business and they have learned all the tricks.
Regarding pressure treated lumber … you need the version treated for ground contact …there are or were at least two grades one was ground contact treated to 0.4 and above grade treated which was treated to 0,25.
Five foot is a good number. for reference the below photo is of one of our interior stall walls the solid lower is four feet, the overall full height is eight feet six inches, horse appears to Bonnie , she is 15.2 ish
I like your idea of a bigger walkway, but if the budget is limited, I’m wondering about a pocket switchback. No gates to leave unlatched by accident and an impossible puzzle for the horses in that stall, lol!
regarding goats & smaller horses… at one time we needed two stalls for our miniature horses. We took a 12by12 stall putting in two 6by8 stalls with a 4by12 walk way …everything was built basically from bottom plate up with the uprights attached from the underside of the bottom plate
divider wall was a eight foot gate panel that was attached to the rear wall with conduit clamps. Everything was very solid but easily removable…took less than ten minutes to take out and return to a standard 12by12 stall
We moved everyone outside while we work on the barn this weekend. Getting some boards delivered Friday.
That little grain silo will be repurposed as a chicken coop come August. Cement floor, electric outlet for the brooder. Windows for ventilation. All we have to add is a yard when the babies grow up.
What is a pocket switchback? I’m not familiar with the term.
The idea came from seeing your first 6’ gate and seeing that a second gate would fill that 12’ width. I also HATE carrying bales around loose horses. You know…they try to grab a nibble and end up taking you and the whole bale with them.
Whatever you choose, I think you will be pleased during a bad storm when you can sneak in your new people door in the feed room (great idea) and take care of everyone/everything without stepping outside again.
I forget, I know it was still cold when you moved, but was it snowy too? Do you know how the snow drifts around this barn? You may find that your front is on the lee side, so digging out may be less than I anticipate. Or it’s the other way and you will be cursing my name come December
And it is something you can always add next year. Personally, I think a little people door to the feed room is where I would put my money first. Clanter brought up some great points about a roll up door in winter.
I’m back to the pocket door idea. I really like it. The shed faces south, but snow can swirl around easily from the west side of the shed. I think the snow will be blocked from the right.
It’s when you have two short walls quite close that overlap, so people can slip in and through, but a horse has no way. The issue is that the hay storage area has a cement floor, while the horse barn area is rock, so it would be hard to put in two walls close together. Plus, I worry about an opening in the stall wall that a hoof might get caught in. I’ll stick to a small door. If I throw the stall occupants their hay first, they might let me slide by with everyone else’s. We won’t have enough animals in there to justify a wheelbarrow amount. It should take about three trips to get everyone’s hay through, even with the increased consumption in the winter, but we’ll see.
Gotcha! It reminds me of a slip through in a fence. What I’m thinking looks like this from above --<-- (sort of) A human slips though, but an equine can’t.
We put up 20 boards for the kickboards. Got one section done and one mostly done. We debated about insulation between the exterior wall and the boards.
we used rigid foam insulation in the side walls of our barns sure has helped reduce summer heating AND provides greater warmth during the Blue Northerner winter storms (usually has to get into the mid teens before we have water buckets in the stalls freeze)
OP that structure appears to have been well built and your progress is remarkable
