Oh cool. Here’s where Oden lives:
It’s only 2 acres. If you look at my link, you can see about 9 zillion pictures of my facility.
really love this thread! (but at the same time it just worries me so… ) I have a 4.23 acre property with most ALL of that in a steep wooded ravine with a creek behind the house. my widdle barn and turnouts are on the only cleared/mostly level frontage area. Driveway centered between the areas. Looks like? I only have 1.5 acres fenced/forage/turnout. I KNOW this will take severe management…and stalling…I won’t be able to stand it if it all goes to mud…its my grandparent’s home, and that frontage is our ‘front yards’…
barn is only 2 stalls. but the end that attaches to the sacrifice area is a 12 x 24 matted run in. Dutch door enters from aisle into that run in, and that attached sacrifice area has connecting gates to a full size dimension (grass) dressage arena that will (must !) double as turnout, and another connecting paddock for the same. (all can be opened or shut). Across driveway is the ‘larger’ turnout area with separate water hydrant as well.
Just now came back in house from meeting contractor for plans/prices for : hay storage barn, equipment shed, and 3 bin manure shed …all of these on gravel area sort of directly across from barn in that open area beside fenceline.
We also have only 2 acres. We bought the house and property about a year ago because it had a barn, paddock, riding ring already on it and affordable horse property is impossible to find in northern Mass! It’s a three stall barn with run out stalls. Two stalls on one side open up to a shared paddock, one stall on the other side opens up to a singular paddock. I wish the previous owners had built the barn behind the house in the back of the property so we could fence in the riding ring and reserve the side of the property for other things, but we work with what we have!
Here’s the link to our property from Google Maps - this was a shot before we bought it but not much has changed.
Pretty self explanatory - red lines are the two paddocks, light blue is the riding ring, yellow is the manure pile. Dark blue is where we’re putting the swimming pool this summer…so yeah, we’ll be living on top of each other. We’re lucky our horses are so sweet.
I’ve got a little over 5.5 acres including where the house is sitting:
http://i833.photobucket.com/albums/zz258/dorim_2005/farm2_zps344f579b.jpg
I’ve outlined approx. fence lines. The large area in the back in my main pasture. Those trees are mostly Pecan trees. The pastures just above and below the four stall barn (left side of picture) are my night time paddocks for the seniors. The donkey has a small run just above the barn for night time or to keep him off the grass.
The area just below the pool is where I can ride or school a horse or it can be used for additional pasture as well as trailer parking for visitors. I even use the front yard of the house for additional pasture when needed.
Ok. Here .
[IMG]http://i1344.photobucket.com/albums/p648/Trottrotpumpkn/BareFarmPicture_zps5fd1c455.png)
Here is what I am thinking, if anyone is willing to take a look and comment I would be REALLY grateful!!
I think hay storage shed will go west of the detached garage. I’m not sure where to put the sacrifice paddock. Or the frost free water (it will run from the south east side of house.
All the perimeter fencing needs to be redone.
The “arena” is the highest point of the property, followed by the house. That is the general area (I don’t need a 250 foot arena in real life). The shelter belt to the north is low and water flows under the driveway to where indicated and then goes out under the highway, if we have a huge storm.
I’m leaning towards building a barn and sacrifice paddocks on the west side just east of the arena. Easy to drive to from the house driveway and won’t ruin my view…I’d like to keep the windmill somehow. The concrete pad over there is from an old cattle yard auto waterer that is gone.
teeny tiny
Little over 3/4 acre- we had to trade space for location (very close to a large city). Haven’t brought the horse yet, will probably have 2 of them- the neighbors one house away (not next door, one more over) have a horse but I think it’ll be better to have another on the property. Third bay of the 3 car garage has been converted to a run- in shed, the tan square next to that is the hay shed. Property is flat except for a very mild slope to the back (good for drainage). Red bars are gates- we added one leading to the big area in back.
Front fenced area is paddock for the run in- back area will be small dressage arena w/sand (65 x 130) and probably another 35 x 130 paddock. Grass won’t grow well enough for pasture here anyway so the acreage doesn’t matter as much, though I’d certainly like more.
http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5504/11211562335_b8b1768790_c.jpg
http://www.mapquest.com/satellite-maps/#c74bae3f603cbe1e4295bdbc
3 acres with one acre unusable wetland. Barn with three stalls, two stalls open into a dry lot . Two fenced Small grass paddocks rotated and only used a few hours a few days a week. Small footed arena. It’s really doable with three horses and the maintenance is minimal. Luckily the neighbor takes all our manure for his gardens! Enough storage to get hay once yearly by the truckload from Canada. I love my small acreage, more grassy turnout would be ice but with very easy keepers it isn’t necessary as dry lot is fine with good hay.
Well, it looks like I got the view I wanted. We are dead center and as you can see, we have significant terrain. 15+ acres mostly in woods for hunting, also have quite a few trails in there. About 5 in use.
The terrain really effects how you can use the place, for example the driveway curves up the slope and everything is on top of the ridge. The old driveway still exists as deep ruts that go straight up to the spot between the run in and the house.
We are putting in a new run in that you can just see the grading for next to the double wide, the old run in really didn’t work as the ridge is sloping down so all the run off went straight into it. Mud hole with a roof. There are two paddocks in the front that can barely be seen, one paralleling the road and the other right in front of the house - no lawn here - one in the back behind the big shop building that you can see the horses in.
The dry lot is pigs, and this year squashes, and there are two orchards. We are just under 500 feet of road frontage and 1350 or so to the back.
Our neighbors to the south,(left) show the kind of pasture degradation that you can get with a sloping pasture that isn’t allowed to rest, horses turned out during all weathers, no mowing/seeding. not so much in this spring view. At one time they had four horses on their front half, about 7 acres, and that year they had a drought. Notice the contour lines that the horses travel on so they can walk level, they actually dig little trails into the side of the hill over time. There are other views from different years that are going to take some time to make up, I’ll give that a try.
Here’s our little 3 acre setup. The brown lines are fencing, the red ones are gates. Judging by the shadows, I’d say the image was done early morning in the winter. That south paddock actually has no trees.
This is an older thread I made about my tiny farm
http://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/showthread.php?369581-Story-of-my-teeny-tiny-farm
I really appreciate this thread. I currently have a large acreage - too large - and for that, and other reasons, am considering relocating and downsizing. I’ve always been quite interested in seeing how people make the smaller setups work.
It can be done! :yes:
Since you were looking in So Cal, here’s mine… Just over 3 acres, but some of it is cactus covered slope so probably closer to 2 useable. The tricky part was making sure the tractor trailer loads of sand could make it to each arena, plus turn around for bigger trailers and such. Wish I had a pond or forest - instead we overlook the 101 freeway :-/
Here is ours. 6 acres. 4 under water during the winter but the summers make up for it.
One of the photos shows a layout of our place. We have a 3 bin compost system, two shelters (each facing a different direction), and lanes instead of a sacrifice lot.
It is working really well for us. 6 horses (4 ours, 2 boarders though one is out for winter work at an indoor).
To see just the google image layout: http://imgur.com/a/RvsAc#22
https://maps.google.com/
I don’t know how to circle my property, but it’s on the south side of B. You can see the run-in shed and dry lot, and the pasture we had plowed up bc we replanted it. The whole property is 2.65 acres, and we have three horses. I wish we had another couple acres for pasture and a round pen, maybe small barn, but neighbors backed out on selling. Maybe some day. DH added on to the back of garage for hay storage, and might do more.
We live fairly close to several trail systems, one which is right up the road, and there are various places with indoors for winter work. A local landscape company takes our manure, or a farmer would probably spread it on his field. I pick dry lots and shed twice/day.
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