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Small Farm Layout

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#1

Hi! I was hoping I could get some feedback on my plans for creating our small horse farm. We just purchased a home with about 13 acres. I have a 14 year old QH and we can’t wait to move him in with us! We plan on getting another horse soon too. First, we have to get our fields, fencing, and barn in.

Here is our land and what I was thinking for a layout. (the green lines are gates)
http://s410.photobucket.com/user/leah0327/media/Overview_all.png.html

We are going to have a split rail fence put in (right now, just Pasture 1) which is about 2 1/2 acres. For the barn, we are considering getting a 2-stall shed-row barn…10x24 which I plan on using as more as a run-in so that my horse(s) can have 24x7 pasture turn-out.

All 3 pastures are on a slight grade/hill with Pasture 2 on top of the hill. I plan on using pasture 1 as our main field. But having pasture 2 and 3 as backup fields to give the main pasture rest. Pasture 2 will not be used in the late summer/fall because there are many fruit trees.

Do you think I need to have a sacrifice field? Right now, only pasture 1 will be fenced with wood with a electric around top. The other fields (sacrifice, pasture 2 and 3) will be fenced with some type of cheaper electric fence for now.

Any suggestions or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

#2

Make your sacrifice area bigger. I don’t know where you live, but my horses spend more time in the dry lot waiting for the pastures to grow or dry out. Split rail is notorious for not lasting very long and when the posts shift the rails fall down. Make sure you watch your fence and/or have no climb attached to it and maybe electic

#3

Where you live will (or should) influence a lot of your design decisions.

Especially the barn. If you live anywhere with cold, snow, lots of rain or wind, you may want to consider a small center-aisle barn. You can still have dutch doors out the back open directly into a field or paddock, but having a dry, level, well-lit place for your vet and farrier to work is essential. There’s nothing worse than having the vet out late at night in the dead of winter to stitch up a cut, and have no place out of the elements for him to work.

In our neck of the woods, split rail is very common and lasts forever. Seriously, at our last farm, the woods/trees were growing through the fencing in the back section, and the fence still looked practically new. It is treated, however, so that helps a lot. When we bought our new place, and priced out fencing, we found treated split rail was actually the most expensive option. We have no climb wire with a top rail around our perimeter, and it works great. Not as picturesque, but safe and more cost effective.

What kind of soil you have will impact how large your sacrifice area needs to be, and how you handle ‘mud season’. If you have sandy, easily draining soil, you may be fine with a smaller sacrifice area, as the horses won’t do so much damage to your grass. If you have clay-y base or low lying areas that take a long time to dry, the horses will spend more time in the sacrifice lot.
Also consider where the mud will occur (gates, around the water trough, etc) and put in higher areas and gravel. It’s worth the initial investment, mud is a horrid thing to have to deal with.

If your barn is 10X24 and serves primrilly as a run-in, where will you keep hay, shavings, grain, and tack? Don’t forget to factor in more space than you think you’ll need for these things. They also need to be out of the weather, secure from rodents and close to the barn.

#4

[QUOTE=ElementFarm;8193036]

If your barn is 10X24 and serves primrilly as a run-in, where will you keep hay, shavings, grain, and tack? Don’t forget to factor in more space than you think you’ll need for these things. They also need to be out of the weather, secure from rodents and close to the barn.[/QUOTE]

This!

I also have a 10’x24’ shedrow that I use in the same manner: it’s left open as a run-in. But I can’t store anything in there.

I have a 20’x20’(?) garden shed that I use for feed/hay/tack/tools/lawn tractor. I survive, but I would kill for more space! Thanks to my wonderful Tetris-master hay guy, I can just barely fit enough hay to last my 2 horses and donkey through the winter. Before him and his miraculous stacking ability, I was trying to store hay outside under an overhang with tarps for extra protection, which was not working well at all in my climate.

#5

Totally agree on everyone else’s observations about the size of your barn. You’re really going to want more space. Where are you going to keep all your STUFF? It’s truly amazing how much you’ll accumulate, never mind the storage you’ll need for hay and space for the vet & shoer. Speaking of hay, how are you going to get the hay guy and his trailer in?

And since this is fresh in my mind after some antics this week: since you’re setting this up, keep the gates away from the corners of your fields if you can. It SUCKS when you have a couple horses out there that want to come in and one pins the other in the corner by the gate and starts kicking because he’s a little snot. What I wouldn’t give for another 20 feet or so between the gate and the corner…

I’d also not even consider fencing pasture 1 with that acute little corner way up at the top. Square that off or plan on stringing some hot tape across it. It’s so trappy. Same with some of the spaces around your barn. Only 10’ between the barn and pasture 3? Only 20’ between the barn and the fence the sacrifice area shares with pasture 1? Just seems really, really tight.

Also consider that you’ll need to fence off or somehow protect those trees in your sacrifice area, or it’s likely your horses will strip them of bark and kill them. Panels work great, I’ve found!

#6

You need a sacrifice for two reasons - one, to protect your pastures and two, to protect your horse from those lovely pastures. I don’t know you or your horse, but the one smartest thing I did when I built my place was to create “the night pen” - other folks might call it a run out, but I initially planned it so I’d have a small space where I could “park” my old guy while waiting for the vet or farrier or whatever without having to put him up in a stall (which he didn’t like). I didn’t intend for it to be used for more than an afternoon at a time or so, but my new pony spends most of her time there, because the pastures are too good for her. So she lives in the night pen (aka, per one of my friends, “the Jenny Craig Paddock”) and gets very restricted turnout. It’s not what I’d originally envisioned, but I’d rather have a healthy pony in a not so pretty dirt pen than a crippled one in a picture perfect pasture.

I’d go bigger on the barn, too - 10x24 would be OK as a run-in, but make it into two stalls and you’ve got two smallish stalls and no storage. If you want to have an “all in one” building, this is one time when bigger probably is better. If you have another plan for hay and tack storage, you can get by fine with the run-in. If you end up with two horses, I’d rather go with a totally open run-in, rather than two stalls, too.

#7

First of all, your property looks gorgeous! Congratulations!

Some people have already alluded to some of these but I’m going to add to them. Some of your pastures have lots of corners. Corners bad!! The ones that stick into a pasture are points of potential injury if horses get to playing. The ones that point out of the pasture are potential points of entrapment, which can lead to injury when horses get to playing or fighting. I’d get rid of as many corners as you can.

I can see you are working around a lot of trees and that is why you have so many corners. But you may find that digging post holes is going to be a real pain around those trees anyway because of roots. Personally, I would do everything I could to avoid digging too many post holes around the trees - and that would eliminate lots of your corners.

I don’t know where you live, but if you live in an area with high winds and snow, try to consider where drifts are likely to accumulate when you plan your barn and pastures. And if you live in a rainy area, I’d try to figure out where the low points are and avoid reasons for gathering there (gates, troughs, etc.)

Gates can be problems if you have more than one horse and I already talked about corners so…gates in corners - two accidents waiting to happen! (Ask me how I know…) Personally, I’d try to rework the arrangement of the barn, sacrifice paddock and all the gates from it.

Make sure your gates are wide enough, and placed well enough, that you can get farm equipment through them. Right now it looks as if you are going to have to go through the sacrifice paddock, right next to the barn, to get into paddocks 2 and 3. Paddock 3 might be especially problematic. You may need to get a tractor or even a backhoe through there someday. Possibly a truck and trailer. Depending on how wide that gate is, it might be doable - but another gate into 3 and even 2 would be nice.

Bigger barn if you can, but if you can’t right now, build it so that it can easily be added to in the future. Try to plan the sacrifice paddock to take that possibility into consideration.

I wish you the best of luck! It can be a lot of fun setting up your own place. :slight_smile:

Liz

#8

Everyone has given you some great feedback!

You will definitely want a sacrifice area.

Just my opinion, but you might want to think about setting your pastures up for regular rotation rather having a “main” pasture and backups. If it were me (based on experience at my own small acreage place), I would divide pasture 1 into at least two smaller (maybe even 3) pastures. You indicate that pasture 2 won’t be used in the summer/fall, so your current layout only allows for one “back-up” for a good part of the year. If you only have two horses on that large pasture, they will not graze it very efficiently. I have one “larger” pasture and my three horses graze their favorite spot and ignore portions of it. I will be dividing it permanently, but right now I have to put up temporary fencing to “force” them to graze in their less favorite spots.

#9

Thank you so much for the replies! I truly appreciate the suggestions…many more things to consider but I want to try to set up the best plan that I can.

I really didn’t think about the amount of corners…will work on straightening the fence…also will square off that upper right corner for sure!

I live in western PA…there are many farms around me that use split rail for horses and they seem to last. I will also put electric around the split rail for extra security. Since the fence will run down most of the driveway to the house, i wanted something that was astetically nice plus horse friendly which is why I was going with split rail. The other fencing we do… I will consider other options.

The shedrow barn isn’t the “ideal” barn I would build, but very cost effective. We do have a large garage/barn that can be seen in the upper top part of the property that I will store all the supplies and hay and also do vet/farrier appts in.

Eventually we will put some stalls in this building, but it was used for a landscape business so there is a large parking lot area around it with compacted rocks and fill. Not good footing for horses and it will take many years to get it horse ready. I would have to walk the horses in/out to the fields daily and still need some type of run-in in the field. So right now, plan is to use the shedrow as a run-in giving the horses 24/7 access to outside.

Again…thanks for the responses!

#10

Everyone else has already made great points about pasture layout.

I think in western PA you will want a decent sized sacrifice area. I put a dry lot in behind my barn this winter and it has been really invaluable. It allowed me to rest my only pasture to allow it to recover from the ravages of winter, and now I leave my younger horse and mini-donkey’s doors open to it so they can hang out during the day and play. (Side benefit: they do most of their business outside so it’s really easy to clean and never gets mixed with bedding!)

Since you only have one horse now and don’t know what the herd dynamic will be like with any additional ones, consider making your sacrifice area flexible so you can put both horses in it either together or separated by a fence. Electric fencing on a reel might work, depending on the dimensions.

Here’s a barn layout that will probably cost less than a center-aisle barn but give you covered workspace and storage: enclosed shedrow. In mine, the Dutch doors at the back of the stalls open onto the sacrifice lot so everyone can have in-and-out access. The setup has worked great for me.

Good luck and have fun planning!!! It can be really aggravating but if you do your homework the end result will be wonderful.

#11

Add a gate between #2 and #3. Not so much for horses, but for you, when you’re driving a tractor with a cart of tools, or manure, or gravel and the idea of driving back around the barn makes you want to cry or holler!

#12

Ah, great! That building sounds like a real asset! Is that it above pasture 1 in the picture?

Cost is the reason we built a 10’x24’ shedrow-- there was no shelter in the pasture and we do not own the property. We were able to build the shedrow with stalls ourselves quite affordably and quickly and it has served us well for nearly 3 years. We had no idea how long we’d be here at the time and there’s a slight possibility of us relocating in the not-so-distant future, so I’m glad we went that route.

But just a tip from experience-- if you’re going to be storing everything in the garage building, you may want to put the shedrow and sacrifice area as close to it as possible. Maybe build the shedrow/sacrifice area near the upper edge of pasture 1 if the area is suitable? Even if you don’t stall your horses in the shedrow, you’ll need to lug hay and feed out to them, right? My storage shed and barn are maybe 30ft at most from each other with a gate in between. I pretty much run myself ragged going back and forth between the two! I think I’d go crazy if they were any further apart!

#13

get a golf cart :slight_smile:

#14

You need to take a serious look at what trees are in the pastures. Esp the fruit trees if there are any cherry ones. http://www.thehorse.com/articles/12962/which-trees-are-toxic

http://www.understanding-horse-nutrition.com/cherry.html

http://www.equisearch.com/article/trees-poisonous-to-horses-18076

#15

Congrats! Put your paddock/field gates uphill from your barn. My roof downspouts are uphill from the paddock gates and drain right into the paddock near the gate, causing the gate area to be a complete mud hole every time it rains.

#16

Don’t have time to read all the responses but just wanted to say we pulled out the split rail and replaced it with non-climb mesh + toprail. It was old, but our horses would put their heads through the fence to find greener grass and knock the middle rail out. More than once they knocked the top and middle rail out, making it a 2’ fence. :eek: Had the local police stop by to tell me once that I had 2 rails down - luckily I had really good horses at the time…but I got very lucky.

Again - it was old and getting “loose”…but if I were installing new fence - no way would I choose split rail again.

#17

I haven’t read all the responses but I would not use split rail…3 board or a top board wiht horse wire would be much better.

I’d also make the sacrifice area bigger and have the barn floating in the middle of it sort of…that way, if you wanted to do a run in type of barn, you could just open a gate to whatever pasture you want to use and shut them out from the other pastures… I might split the biggest pasture and make it 2 for rotational purposes.

I have a very small property but with 4 paddocks I’ve been pretty lucky in my rotation and regrowth during the growing season. I do like if they can wander in / out of the barn for shelter and with a bigger sacrifice area, you can let them have the barn / stalls and be off the grass or switch them to having access to barn/stalls and a paddock of your choice.

A bigger barn or addition for storage and / or hay/feed would be good too! Looks great though.

#18

I don’t think anyone has mentioned this yet, but where are you planning on putting the used manure/compost pile? You probably don’t want it too far from the run-in for convenience. OTOH, you don’t want it too close for health, flys and smell. If have a “staging” area near the run-in and then the main pile elsewhere, make sure you leave enough room for a tractor to maneuver. Good luck!

#19

I would set it up so you could drive right up to the barn. It looks like you have to open a gate to get to it. You will be so much happier if you can back right up to the door. Also, make sure you really build up the barn pad and the sacrifice area drains down. Try to put gates on higher elevations. I’m very glad my gates are 14’ long and heavy duty, fwiw.

I would keep the set up so you can move horses between pastures without ever having to lead anyone. Every pasture should come off the dry lot ideally.

Get rid of the zig-zag and make sure you set up your fences so you can get a mower into the corners. I screwed up and used 90 degree corners. Really wish I would have rounded it so we could mow the whole line.

#20

Western PA means I’d build the layout for winter. Reason being, you will have snow, ice, and limited daylight for 1/3 of the year. If your layout works for that, the other seasons will be somewhat manageable.

We don’t turn our horses out on pastures in winter, period. It destroys the turf and the snow/ice is risky to the horses. We use sacrifice areas and unless you build a good footing surface, even that won’t always be available. There are few good choices when you’re starting out if you can’t afford paddocks with improved surfaces. I’m not saying you should do what I do, just make a conscious choice.

Likewise, choice of fencing is important - I see a lot of high tensile wire around my area but it’s the last thing I would pay money to install (I’d choose coated wire or no-climb, with electric). Split rail is not ideal for me but not as dangerous as high tensile. (I have to say nothing grates my teeth more than seeing a pasture of split-rail in need of repair. Ugh, just sell your horses)

In winter consider what materials you’ll need to move to the horses (water, hay, and grain) and how it will get there both daily and as a restocking. Where will the farrier and vet access them? What about the material that must leave the barn? (Manure) Where will it be stored and how will you appropriately dispose of it?

I don’t think I’d like my barn surrounded by sacrifice and pasture - I want access to it from at least one side. I don’t think you necessarily have to make the barn bigger, as long as you have a plan for expansion.

I agree to round the fence corners to at least a 45 deg angle - easier to mow around, much safer for energetic horses to navigate, and easier submissive horses to avoid being pummelled.

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