Willesdon, I agree and have had your style of boxes before and love them! It is amazing how different cultures have such differing standard practices, yet they all seem to work well for those individuals!
When we were training race horses, we had them during the day behind open stall doors, just a plastic screen and chain holding them.
If a horse would have wanted out, they could have pushed hard enough to pull the eye screws out!
From the many we trained, only once I remember having an alligator horse we had to close the top when walking horses by him, as we didn’t want to go hitting one to keep him in the stall, ends up being a more interesting game.
Good that you will have a way to shut one in if it doesn’t want to play nice.
Here are pictures of our old barn:
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PaddockWood, I love your stalls and your gate! The gate swinging both ways is a great feature. I would not mind a set up like that, though I have one gelding who is strangely tempted by anything with a decent space under it, he attempts to get underneath them🙄 I think I’ve seen some that go to the floor. Anyhow, your stalls look great and very airy.
Love the photos Bluey! It is amazing the small barriers a horse will respect if taught to.
walktrot thank you for the description of your boarding barn, it sounds lovely! She definitely put a lot of thought into the design.
A friend’s sister built a beautiful barn here with all the fancy stuff you might see in Wellington. She had the Euro fronts like those and used some kind of expensive wood for the stall fronts ( teak? mahogany?). Anyway one of the boarded horses would stick its head over the yoke and would gnaw and run its teeth all over that expensive wood, thus making a mess of the wood. Needless to say the BO was not happy. So if you use those - do not use expensive wood.
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My horse learned to crib on the yoke. He was 7 or 8 years old and had not cribbed up to that point. We moved into the new barn and he started it at feeding time - would put his head out and bite the bottom of the opening in anticipation of food. One day he did a little more than just bite it and a cribber was created.
I ended up putting up some wire garden fencing over the opening.
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Good to know! I hadn’t thought of that!
I don’t have any cribbers currently, but since yours learned to on the yoke I will definitely keep this in mind!
Another design idea I saw recently: The stall fronts and doors had wood on the lower portions. But there were openings routed out to allow for more ventilation. These started a foot or so above the bottom at a point and widened quickly to vertical lines, then tapered a foot or so before the top of the wood (think tapered candle). Functional and pretty!
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Yes, here are some such:
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Those are pretty!
Private barn here. My stall “doors” are the wire mesh gates. Like this, but only 4’ wide.
All of the tops of my stalls are just this durable wire as well (wood goes up to about 4.5 feet). I Like the airflow and the horses being able to easily see each other. Fully admit, it may not work in a boarding situation where horses may not get along as well and want more privacy between stalls.
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What kind of wire did you put on the top of your stalls? Need to redo mine as they are currently open and looking for ideas.
I don’t remember the brand, but it was something you can get at most farm/home stores. “Wire mesh fencing rolls”
Just spring for the more durable stuff!
luvmyhackney I’ve seen people use the rolls of no-climb horse fencing to line the upper half of stalls. I believe it comes in welded and non welded versions.
Not rolls of no-climb, you wouldn’t be able to stretch it to a safe tension. What you see (what I used on both my barns) is 2x4" mesh welded “feedlot panels.” Made with very heavy gauge wire, it is stiff on its own and held up with staples or framed in with wood.
As for doors, I’ve used half doors (4ft metal gates) for years. Mares and foals, weanlings, rehab OTTBs, and my stallion have respected them and enjoy hanging heads out. My horses seem a lot less stressed when allowed to look into the aisle. I don’t keep anything in reach if they may chew on stuff. My horses don’t get snarky; aisle is 12ft wide and I don’t crosstie there anyway.
Of course accidents are possible with half doors, but the rewards outweigh the risks for my herd.
We have open fronts at the barn where I board. Some horses will lunge their head/neck out as other horses go by. Our cross ties are in the aisle and stalled horses can/do pester those in the aisle. My stallion has his opening closed because he will nip. We have another stallion who ignores most everything so his are open. We have 8 stalls down the aisle so it can be challenging
Also…we have several who grab things- halters, leads fly masks off hooks at side of door and generally make a mess. Personally if I were building, I’d definitely have windows to the outside. Probably yokes but only those that could be closed. BTW ours aren’t the curvy yoke, there is an open rectangle in the middle of the bars and an insert that slides in if needed.
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Just for kicks here’s a novel stall front type used in Europe at breeding barns. Groups of youngsters as shown, but I’ve also seen a mare and foal in a stall with a front like this.
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That is the way some BLM feral horse pens are built, so feed stays outside the pens and so much is not wasted.
Horses seem to do fine, few injuries with those systems, other than the normal ones from horses interacting with others.
Initially they were worried one horse may trap another when eating and beat on it before it can get away, unlike around bale feeders, but it didn’t happen.
