Stall dividers, which kind and why?

[Bluey]

The vertical grills that are traditional to horse stalls is something we just won’t do.
Everyone at the track has stories of some horse hanging a foot there if it decided to play or kick.
Happens rarely, but why chance it, so that is not a choice.

The stalls we have now, we made them with horizontal bars for the fronts, but I am not sure that is a good idea between horses, just marginally better than vertical grills.
A horse can get a foot thru and back, but if one was to turn the head sideways and be very intent on getting to the other horse, he possibly could and then not be able to get it’s head back.

I think what we will do is open tops, don’t know yet if 1/2 left solid in the front, by the food, but the top some kind of material like the ones in that picture, 2" thick welded rod panels.

Each solid side now has three parts to it above the middle, will be easy to cut those out with a grinder and make some “windows” of that mesh material to fit there, welded or bolted in those spaces, three of them, or the two back ones only.

So much to consider, thank you for the ideas.

[Bluey]

Found this old picture.
This is what we have, three stalls with solid dividers like this one.
I think horses will be better off being able to see down the line of stalls.
Although they ought to know there are other horses there, they are not always sure of that.

We can leave it as it is.
We can cut all three or the back two of those upper panels.
We can add whatever we want in there, the 2" wire, more horizontal bars, any other idea anyone may come up with that makes sense:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a298/Robintoo/get-attachmentaspx-1.jpg

We first made the stall fronts with three bars, but horses almost were sticking their heads out, so we cut the two bottom ones out and added one.
We can use those same horizontal bars between stalls, but that is barely safer than very close vertical bars, I am afraid, but it definitely would be an option also.

[winter]

I have also heard of a horse with a foot through a bar between stalls. Freaks me out. I do like how open a barn feels with half open dividing walls.
To that end, in my barn I am doing solid bottom half, steel mesh upper half. Allows sight lines, and air flow but no chance of a foot going through. I haven’t decided yet on whether I will leave a solid to the top portion in the feed corner.

[susanne]

[QUOTE=Kate66;6012451]
…now that we have a 9.2h pony he can’t see over the 4 foot wall, so tends to freak out. Makes me laugh, we’ve already had to lower the automatic waterer so he can reach it and now have to consider what to do with the dividing wall.[/QUOTE]

Kate, just be sure to measure your little guy’s hooves and choose a divider that can’t catch a hoof. My 9.2h gelding is fine-boned and has tiny hooves. He is a smart boy and while his hooves don’t fit through the no-climb fence, he learned to wedge his hooves in so he could stand up and reach over the fence to graze.

Many of the vertical bar stall panels have wide enough openings for a mini or pony to get a foot through, but not wide enough for them to easily pull it back out.

[Bluey]

I think one solution for us could be making the solid panels with horizontal bars, to match the front panels, then add some of that 2" square material between the bottom bars, leaving the last upper part open, as it is too high for anything to get hung there and is how we move the panels with the pallet forks.

This way it will all look the same, not patchwork and we can make it safe, so nothing would go thru there by chance.

We have some material left over we can use for that, just have three panels to remodel.

[katarine]

[QUOTE=Bluey;6012677]
So many good ideas and reasons behind them, thank you.

We were thinking about making the tops out of this square material, maybe:

http://www.classic-equine.com/posts/custom-designs[/QUOTE]

I love a barn like this in your link. Some QH folks I used to run with had a similar deal, made of a diamond type pattern. Their stud horse could snooze right beside their show gelding, those horses were buddies yet couldn’t bang each other up.Only the 2’ or so in the front corners was solid, so horses could eat in peace. Concrete exterior walls and floors (matted of course) and only one stall was ‘normal’ - a foaling stall so the mare had some privacy, her front wall was half solid, then the grid up from there.

[shakeytails]

My dividers are about 6’ tall, open at the top. Maybe some day we’ll put bars on top. I like open for airflow and so the horses can interact over the tops of the stalls. The stallions have end stalls, and tall dividing walls so they don’t bicker with their neighbor. There really is a difference in air flow with the taller walls. My stalls also have barred windows in them, so they can look out (and they do!) and watch the world go by.

[Sparky_Boy]

[QUOTE=J![](arcyQuay;6012784]

Current barn I’m at has probably close to ideal set-up. Stall walls are all wood (gutted cow barn, used materials to reconstruct inside as a horse barn) and roughly 6 inches thick. about five feet up, there are horizontal spaces between the boards, allowing horses to see each other…but the spaces are two small for them to be able to crib on the boards, and since they are on both side of the 6-inch walls, there is no way for the horses to touch each other. They can see, hear, smell, but cannot get at each other.

Picture (taken during construction, obviously before front stall walls went up):
http://tinypic.com/r/i6f29t/5[/QUOTE]

I prefer this setup. Our last barn had the 2" spaces from about 2 boards up. We used rough cut lumber. [IMG]http://thumb8.webshots.net/t/53/753/9/73/90/2239973900051038748MwSLqL_th.jpg)

The barn we are working on now is tongue and groove. Id like to do at least the top half with the 2" spaces. I guess we’ll have to rip the tongue off of a few boards.

Unless you have some that fight, I really think they are more relaxed when they can see each other.

[candysgirl]

We built ours from scratch. We have solid wood walls half way up and the top half is hog panels (a type of fairly stiff fencing). They can see each other and touch noses, but can’t really get their faces through to cause trouble. The feeders are on the right side of each stall so nobody is eating next to anyone else. The hay feeders (essentially big wood boxes on the ground to keep it contained) are on the right side also.

I like them open on top, I feel like the horses are happier that way and the air flow is much better.

[GypsyQ]

[QUOTE=Bluey;6012852]
The vertical grills that are traditional to horse stalls is something we just won’t do.
Everyone at the track has stories of some horse hanging a foot there if it decided to play or kick.
Happens rarely, but why chance it, so that is not a choice.
:[/QUOTE]

:lol: I was just about to tell you my horror story about a horse getting his leg hung. It ended well, so I can laugh about it now.

I like the airflow and socialization of stalls open at the top 1/2 to 1/4, but would probably consider the meshes or ‘grating’ materials that are available.

[LilyandBaron]

I agree with reasonable safety concerns, but horses can find ways to get hurt in a padded room! My TB mare was in a field feeding situation when she was at the race trainer’s barn, and is VERY worried others will steal her food. We moved her to a corner stall with the feeder against the solid wall, then put up a partial solid divider in the front of her neighbor’s stall, but she was still kicking at feeding time and being an idiot. We walled off the whole thing, and she has neighbor’s across the aisle, so for her, solid all the way made her happier. Otherwise, prefer the open stalls. I do think it’s smart to design a barn with an “isolation” stall of sorts - for sick ones or new horses - having a stall that’s either closed off or at least maybe put a storage room between - I’d always want to have one “isolation” cell:)

[Bluey]

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