For those of you who have built little barns

[Amado]

What kind/type of wood, or whatever did you put on the inside of your stalls? I'm assuming I can purchase the hardware for the sliding doors/still fronts (with feed doors) somewhere online. (Though at the rate the person who is supposed to building our barn is going I may be lucky if I can get the guys to slap up some plywood on the inside of a stall.)

Also - The plan is to have metal siding on the outside and roof, but the walls under the paddock overhang are going to have to be something safer (since Rico has just injured himself on metal siding). I don't know what to use - any ideas? The barn is going to look something like this, with a 12 X 36' overhang off the stalls, and a metal corral panels enclosing a large paddock off that side of the barn. (I found this photo online and photoshopped in the doors)

[Chisamba]

You might be able to get rough sawn oak directly from a mill. I use it for my onside kick boards and the fence. However as a hardwood you have to drill first then nail or screw.

Have also used pressure treated pine. And applied poly over to.prevent staining and make for easier cleaning.

I use straight board. Tonge and groove is prettier, but the slightly open grooves do not bother me and have never seperated enough to be worrisome.

I have marine grade ply above the kickboards. I do not have any.metal siding on my animal barns.

[kande50]

Board and batten, which of course, they eat. It's fairly inexpensive to replace, though.

I electric fence some of it, and cover the insides of the run ins with no climb horse fence, but only use the metal sheets where they can't reach it (roofs) because otherwise I know they'd get hurt on it.

I kept a horse at a barn where they'd put metal strips on the edges of the boards, but they're very high maintenance with the potential for even more sharp edges, so I don't think I'd want to use those, either.

[Amado]

Trying (haha) to keep this low maintenance, in a pretty wet climate. Rico won't have access to the metal siding on the outside of the barn, it will be outside the paddock and pasture area. I was thinking I would have to put the metal edging on the posts that hold up the lean-to - he will chew on wood if there is and available edge, and was boarded at a board and batten barns few years ago and got a bad splinter stuck in his throat. (!)

[WheresMyWhite]

And, morbid as it is, give a thought to being able to reasonably easily disassemble a stall. You, hopefully never, may have to take one apart some day in the event a horse goes down in the stall and that will not be the time emotionally to have no clue how to get it apart so a tractor or something can get in

I know, depressing but IMO something to keep in mind. The last place I boarded did stall construction with this in mind and yes, similar design to yours with dutch doors off the "back" and small runs attached. The runs could also be disassembled.

[Josette]

We installed a Barn Master - see details at this site. Chew proof, kick proof, easy maintenance. Add whatever features and layout.


http://mdbarnmaster.com/ranch-barn-series/

[musical comedy]

My barn looks similar to this, but I chose not to have the overhang. I didn't want horses hanging out making a mess and chewing on the wood.

My barn interior is (I think) yellow pine tongue and groove. It was built by King Construction. It's been up now 26 years and held up well. If I were to do it over, I would make the inside of my stalls that material that the vet clinics use. I don't know what it's called, but it's white and can be hosed down.

[Amado]

I need the overhang because of the weather - I want to be able to leave the stall door open so he can go in and out as he pleases, and the overhang will help keep the snow and weather (that blows in, and that also slides off the roof) far enough away from the door that the inside of the stall doesn't get rain and snow, and that there will still hopefully be a place he can move around in outside of the stall. I imagine we will have to do some snow removal in the paddock area too.

[Canyon]

musical comedy - are you thinking of puck board (HDPE)?

FarmTek sells sheets of it and molding/trim pieces.

I think it sounds like a great material for barns and stalls.

[Josette]

MC - that is the material lining my stalls. You can hose or power wash the interior. Nothing to chew and these walls are kick proof with fire resistance. OP - you can add over hang as you described too. Mine has been up 18 years and through some crazy weather with deep snow and heavy rains. We did insulate the ceiling for noise from heavy rain. Really glad we installed from this barn distributor.

[musical comedy]

Yes, Canyon and Josette, that looks like the stuff. I tend to like lightness, so it really appeals to me. That, and the cleanliness aspect.

I can't speak for Maine weather or any other location than mine. The cold and snow is one thing, but the wind is yet another. Here, we can plow an area and minutes later the wind has drifted the snow over what we plowed. Many of the farmers here have snow fencing. Hopefully, we will put some up here as well. The other thing is that it often snows, then melts a little, then freezes on top of the snow. Recipe for disaster for horses.

There are probably 1-2 months where my fields are totally blocked off from the horse. I plow the path from barn to indoor, and he hangs out in the indoor. There have been occasions so bad that he had to live in the indoor for a few nights.

Here's a pic of my barn. This is when it was newer. It still looks pretty good, as we had it repainted two years ago. The other side of the barn is left open from stall to fields, so horse is never confined to a stall unless due to ice/snow.

My stalls are 12x14. I would not recommend smaller unless you have a small horse. A lot of people don't know that stall dimensions from builders are outside dimensions. I was pretty disappointed when I found out my custom mats were too big for my stall.

[kande50]

musical comedy - are you thinking of puck board (HDPE)?

FarmTek sells sheets of it and molding/trim pieces.

I think it sounds like a great material for barns and stalls.

Is it stronger than plywood, so that you can use a thinner sheet? At that price it might be more economical to put up plywood first and then cover it with the HDLP sheets so they can't get their teeth into it?

I'd also be a little concerned about how it breaks if they put a hoof through it or got one under it? IOW, what do the edges look like when it breaks?

[Canyon]

kande, it is nicknamed puck board because it is used to line the lower part of hockey rinks. Watch an NHL game to see what kinds of impacts it withstands.

Apparently now it is available in a whole array of colors and textures. I don't know what minimum thickness is suggested for horse stalls. If I were ever to build a barn, I would definitely research the material!

[redsoxluvr]

And, morbid as it is, give a thought to being able to reasonably easily disassemble a stall. You, hopefully never, may have to take one apart some day in the event a horse goes down in the stall and that will not be the time emotionally to have no clue how to get it apart so a tractor or something can get in

I know, depressing but IMO something to keep in mind. The last place I boarded did stall construction with this in mind and yes, similar design to yours with dutch doors off the "back" and small runs attached. The runs could also be disassembled.

I second this admittedly morbid suggestion. I went out one morning to find my OTTB rescue project upside down in his water trough
in the throes of a violent colic. I had to disassemble the stall to get him up. Vet came, treated him, his condition further declined and
down he went again. Had to take the stall apart again. I was alone, no help and I am definitely glad that I was able to take my barn down when I had to.

[texsuze]

The inside of my stalls are 2"x6" yellow pine planks installed horizontally. I used spar urethane, cut with something to make it a tad bit thinner (turpentine? paint thinner?). Did this in my tack room, then hired some guys to complete the entire barn interior (where I had planks), since it ended up being too big a job for me It looks great and cleans up with some soapy water and elbow grease.
My entire exterior barn is metal, but on the barn wall that communicates with the turnout pen, DH ran a length of 2x4 horizontally the length of that particular exterior wall (about 4' above the ground). He ran another 2x4 along the lower edge of the wall (we are on a concrete slab), screwing through the metal to attach these 2x4 sections to the barn's frame. Then we took heavy duty stall mats and attached them with screws & washers to the 2x4's to make a "padded" wall, so my gelding couldn't kick the metal wall. Has worked perfectly. Someone in the future could remove the stall mats if they wanted.
For the posts that hold up the turnout pen "porch roof", I had to wrap them in 4' tall field fence, since, yes, the boys sometimes wanted to use them for dental floss
My barn is raised center aisle and the stalls open both into the barn aisle (slider) and into the turnout pens (Dutch door). The one time that I had a horrible catastrophic death (in less than 2 minutes), the poor horse went down in the turnout pen, where the gate to the pasture is 10' wide, so I did not have to disassemble anything. Not sure what will happen if my oldster goes to sleep inside his stall.

[Srhorselady]

My stalls are 12 x 24 and I put in a 12 foot gate/door that goes to the turnout in each stall so I can scrape them out with the tractor if needed as well as get to a down horse. Another smaller door goes to the aisle. Not sure how feasible that is with your weather, but it has been very worthwhile for me.

[Chisamba]

On the morbid train of thought, it is emotionally difficult, but not physically hard to remove a deceased horse through a normal dutch door to the outside. It becomes more complicated if you only have an inside door to an aisle.

Also, there used to be a fakse belief that wood holds bacteria and fungi and poly and plastic is safer. Hundreds of thousands of firstbyear microbiology students doing tbeir first labs will tell you this is not true. For some reason wood, once dried, does not harbor live microbes and plastics do.

Despite only " using" my degree professionally fir a few years, I use it constantly in daily life. Plastics become almost impossible to disinfect . Slight grooves and wear harbor bacteria in a way that even autoclaving does not kill.

I do not know what puck board is made of, but I personally would stick with wood.

[kande50]

My stalls are 12 x 24 and I put in a 12 foot gate/door that goes to the turnout in each stall so I can scrape them out with the tractor if needed as well as get to a down horse. Another smaller door goes to the aisle. Not sure how feasible that is with your weather, but it has been very worthwhile for me.

All except one of my stalls are set up that way too, although most of them don't have gates on all the time, but a gate could be added if for some reason I needed to lock a horse in.

[Josette]

Added to mention that I have interior and outdoor access doors to stalls. Each stall has a large private turnout with interior as sliding door with bars and exterior door is dutch sliding door. I only use 3 of the stalls and the rest are for feed room and hay/bedding storage - no loft.

[Amado]

The plan is to have 4 X 8 doors to both the runs and the aisle. Because of the framing, aisle will only be 11 feet wide (cement is 12), stalls will be 6 or so inches shy of 12 X 12 and 12 X 16, exactly sure (Which means I will be cutting some of my 4 X 8 rubber mats...) Wind and cold weather are an issue here, so I may even need a wind break wall on the west end of the overhang. Only difference between this drawing and what we've done (so far) is that I put the yard faucet in the tack room - which I will (hopefully) heat to just above freezing. (The faucet is frost free, so it doesn't need that, but it will keep whatever hose attachment I use from freezing)

[angela9823]

My suggestion for what you've drawn. The outside door on the lower left - put it in the middle where you have one of the windows instead. The reason is that you have GREAT wall space against the tack/feed area if you ever changed your mind and decided to close that section off. You could easily have hay storage there if you had door in middle instead. You could put window there for light instead. I'm just thinking for future needs just in case. I learned this one the hard way that you may have a future need. You could even put the door under the tall part of the steps (close to the stall in the upper section) to the outside instead.

[texsuze]

Another suggestion or two: (1) move the tack/feed room window to same side of barn as runouts, and use exterior bars over window to protect from horses (still keeping ability to open the window from inside). Then...
(2) put a sliding door across the barn aisle on that bottom end of the barn. With the tack/feed room window repositioned, your slider won't cover that window when open.
(3)relocate your stairway to the exterior corner of the barn, and maybe have a roof awning over the stairs. You would need to add an outside door at the top of the stairs to enter the loft. Then....
(4) open up that end of the barn aisle and add another slider door. Your 12x12 stall would need its window repositioned, too. The "dead end" barn aisle just makes me nervous, thinking of possible emergency. If you aren't able to open that end of the barn and put in a slider, then consider having either your tack room or feed room underneath the stairs to utilize the space. Tack/feed room together is a very tight fit, IMHO.

[Amado]

Will get some photos of the location the barn is going - we are on a hill, and I have had a large swale put in right behind the barn for drainage, so some of the doors are positioned with that (and proximity to house in winter) in mind. Depending on how the builder thinks the stairway to the loft will work, I am considering another people door on the other end of the aisle (underneath the stairs) The large doorway to the aisle on the bottom of that drawing will be closed with a garage door, opening on the inside - we (supposedly) average 95 inches of snow up here in far northern Maine - with freeze thaws that occur later in our winter and the ice will lock any exterior sliding door exposed to the weather in place for months! (Spring is May/June here)

[Amado]

And feed - Rico gets hay and a smartpak, I don't usually do grain, especially when he isn't working. So won't really be much feed in the tack room. Just his tack and grooming supplies. It's not a huge room, but with used of creative shelving (10 foot ceilings) I should be ok. Hoping he will be ok by himself, but I may have to get him a buddy, so maybe an extra saddle and bridle.

[Amado]

Probably will have to have a solid wall (instead of corral paneling) on west side of overhang area as a wind block. Feel like I need to see the barn in place before I decide on the configuration of the fencing and gates in the paddock area. The barn is set fairly close to the house (because of winter - there are a lot of older farms here where the barns are attached to the house!)

[Chisamba]

Invest in a driving snow blower. Keep it stored indoors above freezing. For every six inches of snow, clear your path to the barn, around the barn in front of doors and gates. Around water troughs, yourbdrive and walkways.

Try and invest in a magnesium chloride blend for ice. Its kinderbto hooves etc. Thats my best advice for deep snow winters.

[Amado]

We have a tractor with a front snowblower attachment. I'm guessing we will have to clear the paddock along with the driveway and a path to the barn.