Interior stall doors - sliding, swinging?

[Houndhill]

[QUOTE=cowboymom;7303920]
This thread begs the questions “why are we putting horses in stalls?” LOL A million and one ways a horse can hurt himself on a stall front…

I’ve seen a loose horse run down a (concrete) aisle of open swinging doors and caused mass chaos, doors slamming and swinging and the horse bouncing off the ends of the doors, OMG it was a mess. And it was at a vet clinic so the horse was already there for a lameness. I liked the swinging doors for having to get in and out of the stalls quickly and easily. The barn we have now has all sliding doors and I’m incubating a severe hatred of them.[/QUOTE]

My horses are rarely exclusively confined to the stalls, they can generally come and go…but that is where they eat, drink, and have to wait for the vet/farrier, and are in when the weather is awful, though they do always have access to fenced area under cover attached to stalls. They choose to be in almost exclusively during hot days, in front of their fans. It always surprises me how much they prefer to be out in cold/wet/snowy weather, when they are blanketed appropriately.

I don’t think stalls are inherently evil, but they are a convenience for us, and we need to make them as safe and pleasant as possible for horses and humans alike.

[cowboymom]

yo, it was meant to be a humorous observation.

[Houndhill]

[QUOTE=cowboymom;7303978]
yo, it was meant to be a humorous observation.[/QUOTE]

Oh! My bad.

So many people seem a tad touchy these days…myself included! Sorry.

[Showbizz]

I like both.

I like sliders for the barn I work out of. Stalls open to a center aisle so it’s handy not to get in the way, and also I can open a door just enough for me to get in and do somehing w/o a horse getting out or locking myself in. They do get sticky and require maintenance, although I don’t have to do it

I like swing doors for my own farm, as the doors open to paddocks so there isn’t a lack of space.

[cowboymom]

Houndhill, here too-all good!

[js]

We currently have swing out doors, I don’t really like them. They swing into the center aisle, while we have a large aisle you still have to maneuver the horse to the other side of the door to walk them in, say if you are coming in from the front of the barn and the door swings open to the front etc. If you have people in the aisle or the farrier it just makes it a bit more of a hassle. Also, our’s are dutch doors with a wire mesh top that I always keep open, the horses have on occasion leaned heavily on the lower half of the doors and somewhat bent the hinges so one door drags a bit. The other thing is twice in 23 yrs I have thought I latched the door only to find a loose horse in the aisle. My bad for not physically checking the door but it is easier with a swinging door to think you’ve latched it and find you didn’t.

We are getting ready to build a new barn and I’m opting for sliders.

[SonnysMom]

My trainer has metal mesh sliders. Her latching system is nicer than on most sliders. You slide the door shut and the latch is on the front partition that does not move. You manually flip the latch down and it blocks the door from sliding. When the door is open it covers the latch.
Since it is not on the sliding door itself it can’t be left in such a way the horse could catch a hip. I know it is hard to picture.

[merrygoround]

Sliding ! Yes! Swinging, No!

[winter]

I don’t understand the complaints about having to navigate around swinging doors or having horses hit them in the alley. My swinging doors open flat against the stall so they are no more in the way than sliders unless someone is stupid and leaves them half open…
With both in my barn I am still very firmly in the swinging camp.

[bdj]

Tiny 2 stall barn that’s just for me, so no boarders/other folks around that I have to worry about/cater to.

I have swinging doors (but they’re actually 4’ wire filled gates) that go all the way to the ground, but…
mine swing both ways.

It’s a pole barn and we set the doorposts wide enough to do that. I can’t pin my stall gates flush open against a wall, but since the stalls are open 24/7, it’s not a problem. Picture here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14913413@N02/8576767311/

I kind of agonized about how I’d hang them (and whether stall doors would be centered or on one side or the other of the stalls), but I’m really happy with the way I did things. It’s worked out really well, and I find I use the gates in both directions, pretty equally.

[horsepoor]

@winter;7305513

I don’t understand the complaints about having to navigate around swinging doors or having horses hit them in the alley. My swinging doors open flat against the stall so they are no more in the way than sliders unless someone is stupid and leaves them half open…

Well, I’ve been in two barns with swing doors and in both, they didn’t open enough to have them be flat against the stall when open. No matter how genius you are about opening them all the way, if they physically CAN’T go that far, they are in the aisle (unless, like me, you close them again after exiting, just because it does drive you crazy to have the door hanging out there in the way).

[columbus]

I did sliders

I have worked barns with all types of doors and for working with multiple stalls and chores I always hated swinging doors. Manure spreaders usually fill the aisle and one bad moment and you hit the end of a swinging door with tractor or spreader. Or you have to open all the doors, usually at least 4 at a time for the length of the tractor and spreader, before you bring in the spreader so then you need to have a secondary method to keep the horses in the stalls and you have to plan the next move to have the doors open before you advance and shut the passed doors before they decide you haven’t kept them in with your rope or board blocker. With a sliding door all the doors can stay shut until you get to the stall to clean. When you clean there is bedding on the ground until you get to the sweep up stage and it is easier to shut the sliding doors than swinging doors with shavings in the joints. It is easier to open the sliding door with just feet while you carry a pair of buckets out to be cleaned or have armloads of hay. It is easier to shag the horse back from the opening with a slider than a swinger. The horses KNOW that they get a shoulder out and you can’t force them back in. They are ALWAYS trying to kill themselves with what ever you use but if you have to WORK in the barn sliders make it easier. I will say that you want the best hardware and the heaviest wood you can afford like yellow pine. I have BIG horses and the materials could be tougher but swinging or sliding is less an issue because I am only doing 4 stalls and horses are out most of the time. Things that would make a difference to me are the depth and size of the sheds. And the location of hydrants and outlets both in the barn and out side the barn considering where tanks would be(I thought I would have auto watererer…and they would never freeze). I found I love my over hangs because they keep the ground from heaving in the freeze thaw so the swinging doors and sliding big doors still open. PatO

[Nestor]

I hemmed and hawed about this myself when building my barn.

I seriously beg to differ than sliding doors need more maintenance than swinging. Sliding doors usually just need WD40 (just make sure they aren’t too “long” so they have a little space below them). Swinging doors needs hinges adjusted, and you better hope like heck that it doesn’t start to sag, because then you’re trying to lift it every time you close it.

I like swinging doors because they allow the horses to stick their heads out. I had set my mind on this for a while, until my boyfriend (also the one building the barn) pointed out how much of a PITA they are - maintenance, opening and closing, harder to build… Having done barn maintenance for years, his opinion mattered, so I went with it. He built me custom sliding doors (though we do have dutch doors on the rear… I’m already dreading trying to deal with them, but they’re open almost 24/7), and I love them.

I solved the “horses can hang their heads out” problem by just giving my 3 residents stall guards 24/7. I have secondary guards to prevent them from escaping if they break a snap, and I close the sliding doors in bad weather. Plus, much cheaper to replace a stall guard than a stall door when a horse chews on it or cribs on it. 2 of my 3 residents have some beaver tendencies so this was important (one cribs constantly, the other will chew wood when he wants something, which is often).

I also built my doors with the thought that it would be possible to cut an opening in the top half of the sliding door if I ever needed that. Or I would actually rather buy the metal mesh stall gates that others have described, the ones that swing into the stalls and have a yolk-top. I tried to be flexible.

Here’s a shot of the front of my barn: http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y185/lyssie1232/Front.jpg