Stall Door Latches, please leave your opinion here!

[Minuet]

I’m sure everyone on COTH has operated a stall door, so I’m asking for help, please.
We’ve recently moved, and are building a barn, again.

I foolishly had no opinion on stall door latches when we built our previous barn, I was just happy to have a stall to put the horses in. So we got the kind you squeeze the handle and it pulls the bar down, unlocking the stall. I hated it and we had escapees a couple of times when we left the window down so they could stick their heads out, and they figured out pretty quickly they could use their weight to push the door open.
Are there drawbacks to certain latches you’ve discovered? Anything you hate or love?

[trubandloki]

I think there are very few latches that all on their own prevent a smart horse with access to it from getting loose.

You do not want anything that will easily stick into the door opening when the stall door is not 100% opened.

[js]

Our old barn had a latch that was at the other end of the door and flipped between the stall bars to unlock the door and flipped to the aisle to lock. Horses couldn’t reach it unless one had a very flexible tongue. Worked great. This is from the stall manufacturers web site,

[fourfillies]

Mine are built in to the sliding stall front. You push a button up that is not accessible to the horse as they have no thumb. Looks very clean and very sturdy. I would never have known they existed but were standard with my upgraded stall fronts from Sunset Metalworks. They have been in over a year and no issues.

[Bluey]

I assumed if a horse was pushing a door open, it was a swinging door, not sliding door.

Sliding doors have different latches than swinging ones, see other posts for some of those.

[blue_heron]

For sliding doors, I like the ones with a pin that goes through the door and into the wall. We had those with the double ended snaps that the horses couldn’t undo.

I also like the floor latches that the horses can’t reach, but I can undo with the toe of my shoe when my hands are full (hay, grain, saddle, whatever.)

[B_and_B]

A latch the horse can’t reach is my preference. But, if the horse can reach it, I’ve used a double latch: a safe stall latch that is easily fiddled by the horse (because it is safe, that first one in Bluey’s set of photos say) and a simple rope and snap looped around the adjoining door and post. Almost as fast as a single latch and good at foiling horses that are smart: they know they have opened the latch but the door still doesn’t open, they tend to give up, horses aren’t great at multiple step problem solving!)
My barn, built in the 1870s, has wonderful door latches for swinging doors: they are heavy (almost inch square) bolts of iron threaded through three equally heavy square loops, with an indentation at the closed end which matches the loop on the door: the bolt is a square cross section, four inches long, but the last inch in length which is engaged when the door is closed is a little thinner). The trick is that they are sprung every so slightly so when closed, that thin section is caught against the loop, and in order to open them, you have to push in against the door and slide it at the same time. The force required is substantial and the tolerances are very close, so a horse can play with the latch all day but it won’t move. I’ve never seen similar, it relies I think on the sheer weight of the iron.

[walktrot]

Ours are similar to the ones that Bluey posted. There are 18 stalls. I installed one side, someone else did the other. (Sweat equity for the BO) The trick is to make sure you line them up properly. If the L-shaped end doesn’t line up correctly with the loop on the wall it’s difficult to use the latch. We’ve had a few characters who kick the door usually because they want out. There is a latch down near the floor that helps the door take a pounding. Nobody has ever gotten out. They can’t get at them.

[DoubleDown]

I use the latch that came on my stall fronts, this lever thing that I’ve caught myself on several times. I’m not a fan. Anyways, my horses have jiggled them open a few times, so I now have stud chains looped around the door and frame bars for a second closure. Works great, and cheap.

None of mine are escape artists though.

[DinkyDonk]

I use standard sliding stall latches on my swing out doors. I also added a hasp to each door that I secure with a spring clip just in case someone gets the stall latch open. The hasps are about 10" below the regular stall latches–out of sight (of the stall occupant) out of mind.

[Gamma]

Here’s my unicorn list, I have yet to meet a latch that fits all of the following:

Can be opened by a human
With minimum effort
While wearing heavy gloves
One handed, carrying something heavy or holding a bratty horse with the other hand
And also from inside the stall
Obvious how to open in case of emergency
Does not stick out enough to catch on things, even if used improperly
Sturdy, won’t be rendered useless or jammed if a horse tries to bust through it, nice if it also braces the bottom of the door
Autolatching would be nice

If you can block horses from getting to the latch at all some of these become easier. I’d like to see a barred door with a cutout (like the feed bin cutouts) next to the latch so it’s easier to reach from inside.

[foggybok]

Just bought some latches to add to our doors as the previous owners built the dutch doors with silly latches that can be opened from either side (good) but curious horse lips can turn them (bad). I was putting a clip in from the outside to keep this from happening, but now we added a sliding latch. the thing I like about this model is that it has a spring to pull the latch away from the opening so you never have the chance of catching a horse with a partially out slider. They are way more expensive than the other ones, but worth it for safety.

[vxf111]

@blue_heron

For sliding doors, I like the ones with a pin that goes through the door and into the wall. We had those with the double ended snaps that the horses couldn’t undo.

I also like the floor latches that the horses can’t reach, but I can undo with the toe of my shoe when my hands are full (hay, grain, saddle, whatever.)

That’s what I have. No horse can open it. Period.

[ASB_Stars]

This may be apropos of nothing, but I remember when a rather well-known barn in my area burned. The people who were trying to get in and rescue the horses stated that they couldn’t get the doors open because the hardware was too hot. That’s heartbreaking. I wonder if there’s something that could be used where there wouldn’t be that issue. I have no idea what it would be, but I can’t get that thought out of my mind

[Minuet]

@ASB Stars

This may be apropos of nothing, but I remember when a rather well-known barn in my area burned. The people who were trying to get in and rescue the horses stated that they couldn’t get the doors open because the hardware was too hot. That’s heartbreaking. I wonder if there’s something that could be used where there wouldn’t be that issue. I have no idea what it would be, but I can’t get that thought out of my mind

Something I hadn’t considered but definitely worth thinking about.
Thank you all for the replies.
Our previous barn doors had handles with a mechanism on the top inside, you pushed up with your finger. It connected to a bar that would lower and disconnect the door from the other side, sliding it back. It was really tight and hard to get open.

I assumed if a horse was pushing a door open, it was a swinging door, not sliding door.

No, they were sliding. The horses would stick their heads out the window of the door, push hard and move the door off the track. The latch itself would just give way.

[vxf111]

@ASB Stars

This may be apropos of nothing, but I remember when a rather well-known barn in my area burned. The people who were trying to get in and rescue the horses stated that they couldn’t get the doors open because the hardware was too hot. That’s heartbreaking. I wonder if there’s something that could be used where there wouldn’t be that issue. I have no idea what it would be, but I can’t get that thought out of my mind

The entire sliding front DOOR of my stalls are metal, so if things are getting hot a different material for the latch is unlikely to make a difference sadly.

This is why every one of my stalls has wooden dutch doors out the back. In an emergency you can just let all the horses loose from outside of the barn.

[Minuet]

This is the latch we are looking at right now. Does anyone have an opinion or experience with this type?

[jodyjumper]

I’ve gone to a quick latch, works on slider or swinging door. I put the screw eye (that the shank drops into) next to a piece of wood so the horse can’t fuss with it or reach it.

[lorilu]

One of the show venues around here has those latches. They work fine, but the door needs to close well and be aligned. ALso, there needs to be something on the ground to catch the bottom of the door when it is closed, otherwise the horse can push the door and it will come off the top rails (it happened to me at a show… all was OK tho) ( Minuet’s post, the squares between the slats type)

[lorilu]

One of the TB farms around here has sliding doors and a pin that goes into the wall behind the stall door when it is closed. It goes in at a downward angle. It’s got a chain attaching the pin to either the wall or the door, I cant remember. I like it because there is noting sticking out on the side of the door where the horse walks, like the typical sliding latch - I always worry about a horse scratching his hip on it, even when it’s all the way drawn back correctly.