sliding vs swinging stall doors

[Luseride]

Love swinging doors! I have them in my barn and we have been in it for 16 years. The only thing I would change is if there was someway to stop them from going in. No matter how much I preach someone will try to push in and take a horse through the gap that is not wide enough.

[melula]

@KBC

Lol, having been raised in the UK and only knowing ‘proper’ stable doors, hinged opening doors, I still get frustrated when tacking up…always used to park the Saddle on the door, so it was in reach…still feels odd not to do that!

Interesting. Knowing they are going to sag over time as a function of gravity, I’d probably get out of sorts if boarders hung saddles on beautiful doors.

[KBC]

@melula

Interesting. Knowing they are going to sag over time as a function of gravity, I’d probably get out of sorts if boarders hung saddles on beautiful doors.

LOL and here was me thinking that people would be more worried by beautiful saddles hanging over doors!

[beowulf]

@One Two Three

I love swinging doors! The ones we have at my barn are great. They swing INWARD and lay flat against the stall wall when not in use. Not in the way, easy to manage, and cheap! The picture of the concrete block barn shows the stalls with them installed. Those stalls used to have big heavy rotten wooden sliding doors on them. BO just took them off, painted the block, and added those stall guards. I love.

Same with the wood stalls. Those were brand new, and instead of putting a traditional stall door, she did the same, and we love them just as much in that barn as well.

I know this is a “worst case scenario” but, I will never do swinging doors inward again. Yours might work since they are guards and not doors, though.

In a bad situation, swinging doors are really, really bad. I’ve had two bad situations off of the top of my head that would make me never use inward-swinging hinge doors.

My late gelding died suddenly in his stall. We think he was struck by lightning, as the building was visibly struck on his end, and the other horses in the shed-row were completely out of their minds and standing out in the torrential downpour rather than in their run-in stalls, but all of that aside, we couldn’t get to him. All of the stalls had swing-in doors that swung into the stall, and my gelding fell directly onto the door and was propped up against it, with his neck propped up alongside the door, and his body wedged against the wall and the door. To get to him out, I had to climb into the stall through the window, and we had to dismantle and destroy the door to get him out. Since his body was leaning against the door, there was too much pressure to just unscrew the hinges, which we couldn’t get to anyway since his body was blocking half of them and the run-in was not situated in a way that we could get the truck backed up enough to pull him out of the other door.

I also was involved at a BNT barn when her UL horse got cast. It was an older barn that had swing-in doors, and we had to cut down the door to get to the horse, since it did not have a back stall door. It was incredibly distressing and the horse was cast for the better part of 15m after we noticed him because we couldn’t get inside to help him, we had to destroy the door first.

[One_Two_Three]

@beowulf

I know this is a “worst case scenario” but, I will never do swinging doors inward again. Yours might work since they are guards and not doors, though.

In a bad situation, swinging doors are really, really bad. I’ve had two bad situations off of the top of my head that would make me never use inward-swinging hinge doors.

My late gelding died suddenly in his stall. We think he was struck by lightning, as the building was visibly struck on his end, and the other horses in the shed-row were completely out of their minds and standing out in the torrential downpour rather than in their run-in stalls, but all of that aside, we couldn’t get to him. All of the stalls had swing-in doors that swung into the stall, and my gelding fell directly onto the door and was propped up against it, with his neck propped up alongside the door, and his body wedged against the wall and the door. To get to him out, I had to climb into the stall through the window, and we had to dismantle and destroy the door to get him out. Since his body was leaning against the door, there was too much pressure to just unscrew the hinges, which we couldn’t get to anyway since his body was blocking half of them and the run-in was not situated in a way that we could get the truck backed up enough to pull him out of the other door.

I also was involved at a BNT barn when her UL horse got cast. It was an older barn that had swing-in doors, and we had to cut down the door to get to the horse, since it did not have a back stall door. It was incredibly distressing and the horse was cast for the better part of 15m after we noticed him because we couldn’t get inside to help him, we had to destroy the door first.

I can appreciate your struggles with swinging doors, but thankfully because our doors are only stall guards, we don’t really foresee these issues. A death within the stall may pose a problem, but it would be the same problem we would have with a traditional door, as the doorway its self is only so big. But these guards swing flush with the wall, and if a horse is down, swing over their head…so unless the horse gets into a really freak situation right in front of the door, I don’t foresee any more trouble with these than with any other sort of door. We’d be breaking concrete blocks either way, which is a sad reality to think about, but part of ownership none the less.

The other nice thing about these stall guards is that they’re not on a hinge. They’re on a bolt that attaches to an eye hook into the concrete. SUPER easy to lift up and remove the guard vertically.

[Bluey]

I thought it is standard, has been for centuries, that stall doors open to the outside, not inside a stall, long before there were even sliding doors.

For obvious reasons, already mentioned.

Now, stall guards, those may open any one way you want to hang them, as they are easier to take off in most situations you would need to do so.

The ones we used with our race colts were just hung on two eyebolts, then one wired to it’s eyebolt, so the horse could not lift them if it tried to, but easy to take off for a person, even in a hurry.

We never had any problem whatsoever with any swinging stall door.

[KBC]

@Bluey

I thought it is standard, has been for centuries, that stall doors open to the outside, not inside a stall, long before there were even sliding doors.
.

Yup, it is, or was where I was…

[clanter]

@Bluey

We never had any problem whatsoever with any swinging stall door.

except keeping them locked and closed, kind of depends on the horse we have one TB…she will not challenge any door, will not push the access door to her feed bowl even though it is NEVER locked…just will not push it open

But the Morgans swing or slide …let’s see if I lean on this wall just so and push right here… presto I am out

slides are easy for them to open … insert nose here push this way and magically the door is open

We have to insert latching pins in all the slides to keep them closed, and physically place locking bars in place for the swinging doors,