building your own stalls

[Bess Kelly]

Sweet Opal, I apologize if my reply offended you as I never meant that your horses were anything less than extremely cared for and loved. Simply, that stalls alone would not correct this situation you are experiencing. Nor did I mean to infer that you were not knowledgeable -- you just didn't say you knew it was boredom.

There are many on this forum who are NOT aware of so very many issues with minis that most of us will offer insight/suggestions into such unusual happenings -- and tail chewing is not the norm, as you know. It is a health and cosmetic concern.

You are correct, my herd is primarily allowed access to their barns at will, although a few are individually stalled nightly. But, there was a time when I stalled over 50 head each and every night!

I hope that you will reconsider the reply as just what it was, alternative insight, and not a bashing of any kind. To those who read it as such and replied to that, thank you. To those who read and didn't know the things offered for thought, I hope it enlightened you in some positive way. And Rabbitfizz had a wonderful post, solved it all nicely.

Good luck with your new barn....and new tails.

 

[Bess Kelly]

Sweet Opal, I apologize if my reply offended you as I never meant that your horses were anything less than extremely cared for and loved. Simply, that stalls alone would not correct this situation you are experiencing. Nor did I mean to infer that you were not knowledgeable -- you just didn't say you knew it was boredom.

There are many on this forum who are NOT aware of so very many issues with minis that most of us will offer insight/suggestions into such unusual happenings -- and tail chewing is not the norm, as you know. It is a health and cosmetic concern.

You are correct, my herd is primarily allowed access to their barns at will, although a few are individually stalled nightly. But, there was a time when I stalled over 50 head each and every night!

I hope that you will reconsider the reply as just what it was, alternative insight, and not a bashing of any kind. To those who read it as such and replied to that, thank you. To those who read and didn't know the things offered for thought, I hope it enlightened you in some positive way. And Rabbitfizz had a wonderful post, solved it all nicely.

Again, I apologize if you were offended, it was not the intent.

Good luck with your new barn....and new tails.

 

[Bess Kelly]

ooops

 

[SweetOpal]

OK, sorry to butt in here, but, just to pick hairs, if you did not wish the fact that your horses were rubbing their tails to be taken into consideration it might have been best not to put that info in, in the first place?

Basically, if you only want comments on a specific thing it is best just to put that specific thing or to state that you know what is causing it and you are taking this course of action so do not need comments on it, thank you!

I know it sounds a bit crazy but I do believe you are being too sensitive, that there are many forms of worm infestation and your worming programme may well have missed something, so a very mild suggestion that this could be a cause of your base problem (after all stalling them will not prevent them from rubbing) could have saved you a lot of time and bother.

This is the way this forum works, nothing disparaging is meant by the comment, it is just someone trying to be helpful.

I see lots of really good ideas here, for stalls, but personally, I like a situation that allows animals their privacy as well as access to companionship.

read the initial post, my horse doesn't rub its tail!!!!!!

 

[~Lisa~]

OK, sorry to butt in here, but, just to pick hairs, if you did not wish the fact that your horses were rubbing their tails to be taken into consideration it might have been best not to put that info in, in the first place?

Seriously folks this is getting quite ridiculous- I think the OP was pretty clear here she wanted to see stalls pictures of stalls.. nothing more nothing less. She simply stated they needed to be closed sides or solid walls so her horses did not chew tails.

No where did I see an invitation or request to tell her- her feed program is not correct - her deworming is not correct- or in fact even ask one question about the tail chewing and how it related to the care of her horses

She more then once has said right here on this thread and obviously in PM's I do not want any info on anything but pictures of stalls and yet somehow a few of you are trying to make her the bad guy. I am not sure how much more clear or how many more times the OP needs to state ALL SHE WANTS IS PICTURES.

to say if you do not want answers to questions you did not ask - or opinions you did not ask for then use google not the forum is well a bit off putting

To think Rabbitfizz solved the problem makes no sense. Actually only 3 people tried to help the OP with what she asked for by showing stall pictures. Thank you for that as I love to see other peoples stalls and draw ideas from them

and remember that is all that was requested. NO more no less.

Why do we need to create an enviroment where people are afraid to ask questions?

And especially when their questions were pretty clear in the first place.

I hope we can get back to seeing more pictures of stalls and barns

 

[rabbitsfizz]

I'm sorry but I do not see an environment being created where people are afraid to ask questions, not at all. I do see people blowing this up out of all proportion, though.....

I have NO idea why!

That's me done with this thread, I tried, but there you go..

 

[~Lisa~]

I get that you do not see that enviorment...

But in this one post when the OP simply stated once again she did not want any info on the tail chewing thanks but that was not what she was after..

she was told well then dont come here google it

that she should have posted instead something along the lines of pics barn stalls solid walls please

and been told that her horses are not de-wormed properly all due to a request over pictures..

I can see how Bess meant no harm for sure-- and I can see after Bess's post she once again asked please only pictures and I can see some just not being ok with the request.

Just saying perhaps we all (myself included) need to really think what question(s) were asked before we make assumptions that are opinions on everything and anything else related to horse care were what was asked for

 

[Marty]

I love all you guys so much, so for all of you on this thread I am serving you all a nice hot cup of apple cider on this very pretty autumn day. We just got it at the orchard over the weekend and its wonderful!

Now lets all join hands and sit on the porch where the air is brisk and crisp and sing Cum-bay-ah.

Life is good, the scenery is awesome, you guys are so sweet, lets celebrate this day!

 

[Relic]

Oh wow hot apple cider yummy..but man who the heck wants to have to sing Cum-bay-ah

 

[little lady]

I love all you guys so much, so for all of you on this thread I am serving you all a nice hot cup of apple cider on this very pretty autumn day. We just got it at the orchard over the weekend and its wonderful!

Now lets all join hands and sit on the porch where the air is brisk and crisp and sing Cum-bay-ah.

Life is good, the scenery is awesome, you guys are so sweet, lets celebrate this day!

Marty-LOVE IT!!

Secondly-I would like to thank the people who did post pics of their stalls!!! Great looking stalls. I have been scratching my head and sitting in the barn trying ti figure out exactly what/how to what to do with the dividers between my stalls and now it has been answered!

 

[ChromeLuvr]

I love seeing the mini stalls! Thanks for the photos. More please!!

 

[Cavallini Farms]

What great stalls!

 

[LittleRibbie]

Stall Pictures? HECK NO......Now I want to see a picture of Marty sitting in her rocker on the front porch sipping hot ....and she'll be singing!!

 

[TopSpout]

Do you have lights set up yet SweetOpal? I'm in the same boat you are, starting out with a shed and building a couple stalls inside. I would love to see more pictures as well.

Also, if anyone has ideas regarding lighting and outlet placement I would love to hear about them!

 

[ruffian]

Sorry I don't have photos, but I used the mini panels. We put down 2 x 8 sheets of plywood lying lengthwise in a frame of 2 x 4's. Then put the panels on top between 4 x 4's. I used pipe clamps to hold the panels in place. The horses can see each other, but can't reach through the narrow openings at the bottom of the panels.

For the fronts I used the gates at ground level. So I can see the whole stall at a glance. If you are still interested I can get some photos.

I have outlets at 6' at the back of every other stall. Eventually I will have a light over each stall wired individually so I can turn on each stall's light.

 

[RhineStone]

I debated if I was going to post these photos, because I was a little annoyed by the OP's reaction to sage advice (sometimes one thing may seem like it will solve a problem, when it is really another whole issue altogether, like for example on another forum there is a discussion about adding a check to keep a driving horse from eating when really what needs to be done is to go back and retrain the horse

...but I digress), here are photos of our stalls that my husband and I built in 2000 and subsequent years (we added as we needed to). We patterned them after the Woodstar stalls but changed a few of the details. We used 2"x6" tongue and groove "decking" which makes for great strength.

They are 5'x10', but the center dividers can be removed to make one 10'x10' which can be used for foaling or a big horse. The center divider can be made as tall as needed, so that the horses can either see each other or not at all, just by adding or removing boards. The tongue and groove make it pretty difficult for a horse to move a board by themselves, as the boards "lock" together.

Our horses rarely spend a lot of time in the stalls, but we keep them in occasionally, therefore, we didn't see the need for really big mini stalls. However, if we do keep one in and need a bigger stall, we put them in one of the big horse's stalls that has a pipe gate in the doorway so that the mini can get airflow and see out.

As far as lighting goes, we decided to place the fixtures on the sides of the aisle vs. down the middle. The lighting is good in both the stalls and the aisle then. If lights are in the middle of a space (i.e. stall or barn aisle), they will just light up the back (top) of a horse which is not usually where you need it. We have a 40'x32' barn and use 8 Compact Fluorescent lamps. Eventually, I would like more light in my shower stall, as the solid wall from the adjacent tack room blocks a lot of light. For lighting in the arena, we have nine 400w Metal Halide fixtures in there. It is like daylight!

We had halogen, but we were replacing bulbs left and right and at 14' in the air, that got tiring.

We also have one outlet on each of the "structural" posts, which gives each stall access to an outlet. This is especially important in the winter if we have to use heated buckets. We tried to use GFCI outlets in the barn, but some bugs crawled in them and screwed them up, so we had to replace them. Maybe there is some sort of cover other than the one that comes with it that we should have used.

We also have one tie ring in each of the stalls for water buckets, and tie rings between the stalls in the aisle for grooming and harnessing (I REALLY like this

). We also have one set of cross ties in the aisle and one in the shower stall.

If I were to change anything, I would have liked to have the water pump closer to the shower stall, but we put it in as far as the water guy could dig. We should have had that installed before the barn was done. (Actually, a hot water heater installed would have been great, but we have plans to run a hose from the house with a hot/cold spigot outside.) I would also LOVE to have Nelson waterers put in each stall or between each stall, but that again would have had to have pipes run before the walls were up. We have one outside that we LOVE! Eventually some day we want to rubber mat the entire barn, to keep the dust down without the hardness of concrete. And we still need to line the mini stalls with wood. The horses have put little holes in the wainscot metal, so we are going to replace that entire section under their shed (attached to the barn) with tongue and groove wood. The big horse stalls are already lined and the T&G works great!

There are other photos of the rest of our barn, including lighting, on this page: http://rhinestone-ri...es.com/Facility