Sliding Stall Doors Not Opened All the Way

[Pookah]

I’m hoping someone here has come up with a brilliant solution for this! We are renting a lovely 8 stall, center aisle barn to house a therapeutic riding program. The stalls have sliding doors, which is great as we don’t have doors swinging in the aisle. However, our volunteers are having tremendous difficulty remembering to open the door completely and slide the latch back completely, and I am very concerned that this will eventually lead to a serious injury, particularly as one of our horses is missing his right eye. We cover it extensively in training, showing the way doors are to be opened, remind volunteers, correct the behavior immediately when not done correctly, etc, but it continues to be a daily issue and is quite frankly causing me a lot of stress as it’s an entirely preventable serious injury waiting to happen.

One of our vets suggested sharing a reminder with a photograph of a horse with a fractured pelvis, but I don’t think that will be received well. I have considered stall guards or gates and just leaving the doors open all the time, but we cross-tie in the aisle and have clients in and out of the barn, so I would prefer the horses not have their heads out in the aisle (don’t worry, they are in stalls minimally and primarily live out). The doors unfortunately have variable weight/ease of sliding, so we haven’t been able to come up with a magnet or similar solution.

Anyone have a great way to fix this? It’s not an issue for staff members and a more limited group, but we have quite a few volunteers helping out, and some of them just cannot seem to remember to open the door completely.

[luvmyhackney]

Add a sign on the door and show them the broken pelvis horse. You are the one footing the vet bills.

Then show them how to properly open and close a door, don’t assume they know.

[Arzny]

At a minimum, could you replace the latches with something that will pull back by itself? Maybe somehow spring loaded so that it cannot be left out? Then at a minimum, you have horses hipping themselves on doors, but hopefully not being torn open by a latch, since that is the more immediate danger to me.

[GraceLikeRain]

“Failure to fully open or close a stall door when handling a horse results in an immediate seven day suspension for volunteering. 14 days for second offense. And a reevaluation of fit with volunteer program for a third offense.” Enforce it every single time. Have visible signage. Better to lose a volunteer than a therapy horse or have a horse hip check a door and run over a volunteer. Do you really want people handling horses who cannot abide by such a basic safety expectation?

[NaturallyHappy]

I know someone whose horse wrecked his stifle in a situation just like this. Get rid of the doors or get rid of the people who can’t be trusted.

[trubandloki]

@Pookah

I’m hoping someone here has come up with a brilliant solution for this! We are renting a lovely 8 stall, center aisle barn to house a therapeutic riding program. The stalls have sliding doors, which is great as we don’t have doors swinging in the aisle. However, our volunteers are having tremendous difficulty remembering to open the door completely and slide the latch back completely, and I am very concerned that this will eventually lead to a serious injury, particularly as one of our horses is missing his right eye. We cover it extensively in training, showing the way doors are to be opened, remind volunteers, correct the behavior immediately when not done correctly, etc, but it continues to be a daily issue and is quite frankly causing me a lot of stress as it’s an entirely preventable serious injury waiting to happen.

One of our vets suggested sharing a reminder with a photograph of a horse with a fractured pelvis, but I don’t think that will be received well. I have considered stall guards or gates and just leaving the doors open all the time, but we cross-tie in the aisle and have clients in and out of the barn, so I would prefer the horses not have their heads out in the aisle (don’t worry, they are in stalls minimally and primarily live out). The doors unfortunately have variable weight/ease of sliding, so we haven’t been able to come up with a magnet or similar solution.

Anyone have a great way to fix this? It’s not an issue for staff members and a more limited group, but we have quite a few volunteers helping out, and some of them just cannot seem to remember to open the door completely.

I get your frustration. Totally get it.

But, until I can figure out how to not sometimes open a door where I (myself) walk into part of it, I am guessing there is no chance of getting all the volunteers to remember about stall doors.

I do think you have some good tips here.

When you explain the importance of doors in the training you do need to include the ugliness of how things can go wrong when they are not opened properly.
Explain how important these horses are and when they get injured because a door is not open all the way how much it impacts the program and how that horse will suffer.

Then move forward with instant corrections when it happens.

[beowulf]

This, combined with a notice in event of injury they are responsible for all veterinary fees, and attach these written notices/reminders with a photo of what a horse with a stall latch injury looks like.

There is zero excuse and not opening a sliding door comes down to plain laziness or inattention.

[endlessclimb]

Yes, this.

Being nice is great, but not when something so serious is at risk. Same reason most companies have a zero-tolerance policy for not following safety procedures.

[NaturallyHappy]

This is a GREAT idea- you break it, you buy it!

[2DogsFarm]

While hitting them in the pocketbook could work, what happens if they don’t pay?
Volunteers don’t get a paycheck to garnish.

IMO, they really need to see what a latch injury looks like.
Or the result of a person being run over in the aisle < bet COTH can provide some nice bruise pics

Are the doors easily moved? Open & shut?
I ask, because after 19yrs, my sliding stall doors are stickier than they used to be.
{Raises Hand} Guilty of not completely opening/closing when I feed, groom, muck, or for any reason go into a stall. With or without a horse resident.
Maybe get a handyman to take a look at & repair any of the sliding mechanisms that need it.

But still meet either volunteers & give them a quick refresher course.
And mention the repair cost penalty.

[Ghazzu]

But they still need to fully open the doors.
If volunteers can’t be trusted to follow basic safety rules wrt the horses, how can you trust them with the safety of humans as well?

[FjordBCRF]

@Pookah

One of our vets suggested sharing a reminder with a photograph of a horse with a fractured pelvis, but I don’t think that will be received well.

I see a lot of posts directing people that are interested in horses to “volunteer” to get a feel for things. Injuries are part of horses and this is an example of why it’s so important to mitigate what you can; show them the photos your vet suggested. And also give them a ballpark of the associated costs and rehab time for the horse.

I don’t think you’ll get very far with requiring them to pay vet bills if they arise, you can suspend them from volunteering for a time period and put them through training again before they can continue to volunteer.

[Scribbler]

We have sliding doors plus stall.gusrds that unclip.

We either shut the door or have it wide open with stall guard up. Half open is a recipe for disaster.

I don’t know where you are drawing your volunteers from. I agree that someone who can’t internalize basic safety protocol within a few days is not safe to have entering the stalls. If you are drawing volunteers from a marginal or fragile population, they might not be up to the basic safety protocol.

I would also ban headphones or texting in the barn except emergency. Folks wandering around in a cloud are dangerous.

Is this a widespread problem or one volunteer? You may need to fire them. Or make them work under supervision.

Lots of folks who volunteer are out of the workforce for some reason, retired or have some kind of disability. Short term memory loss is a real thing. It’s just super dangerous at a barn.

[trubandloki]

@Scribbler

Is this a widespread problem or one volunteer?

Oh please.

This is a problem everywhere.

People shove the door, it slides part way open and then they lead Dobbin thru and since it works 95% of the time, no one cares. Until the time it does not work.

This OP is not part of some unique pool of people who do not open doors.

[Scribbler]

@trubandloki

@Scribbler

Is this a widespread problem or one volunteer?

Oh please.

This is a problem everywhere.

People shove the door, it slides part way open and then they lead Dobbin thru and since it works 95% of the time, no one cares. Until the time it does not work.

This OP is not part of some unique pool of people who do not open doors.

Interesting. We don’t do that here. Maybe our doors are too narrow to only open part way.

But my larger point is if this barn has specify safety rules that volunteers can’t remember that’s sn issue.

I originally thought they were leaving the doors half open and walking away

Rereading I see that some of the doors are sticky. Fix those for starters.

[Displaced_Yankee]

So a couple of ideas for you…

What about a BIG stall guard? Pictured below, but perhaps you can install it a bit higher to prevent a horse from sticking its head out? Or use this at normal height and a ‘normal’ sized one above it?

Stall Door Guard

In my quick Google hunt, I also found these:

Plastic Stall Gate

I am also picturing a stall guard at the top to keep heads in. You can probably install them so they only swing in and can clip to the stall wall when no equine is in. Prevents stall doors from swinging into the aisle.

Just some ideas…

[hillary_again]

How about a different approach - can you create some kind of physical reminder? Our stalls have door ledges, so if we painted a mark on the ledge and trained people to open the door until you can see the mark, that would help. Honestly, where I board, the issue is getting people to LATCH the doors is a bigger problem. It’s all too easy to just pull it, run across the aisle/go to the tackroom/… and then in a minute…oops, someone forgot, and a horse is loose.

[HPFarmette]

Attach a short chain with a clip on the front of the door and put an eye hook on the part of the doorframe that is exposed when the door is fully open. Require the chain to be clipped whenever the door is open. They will have to open it all the way as long as the chain is short enough.

[trubandloki]

@HPFarmette, that is such a simple but brilliant way to do this.

They will get kickback from horse people who have never had to do this at any barn they have been in, I am sure.
And it does add a step to putting the horse away. They have to stop in the aisle and unclip before taking the horse into the stall.

[Grey623]

@hillary_again

How about a different approach - can you create some kind of physical reminder?

I think this is a brilliant idea. A visual marker (Open the door past the white paint) is much more likely to get results than lectures.

There must be stall gates that don’t let horses put their heads over. That might be best solution, at least for your horse missing an eye.

Grey