Stable and field Setups

[Crystalbank]

I read an old post on here about Marty building a barn and I took a tour of the barn on her website - wow!

Winter has been really hard down here and I want to start planning for the next winter. I have a six acre field which I've split into three so that I can rest and rotate, although for now it's all open to try and prevent poaching. I have a stable at the bottom of the field, but would like to jot some mini ones around the place.

Do any of you have pictures of your setup and any tips etc on splitting the field? I need to take into account a little nursery strip and of course two Stallion paddocks - how do you all keep your stallions?

Lots of pics please as they really help me.................and I love to see them

 

[WhiteTailsMinis]

We just finished 4 stallion fields and a new maternity field closer to our barns within the last two weeks. Last year we walked those pregnant mares a mile from the field to the barns - harder on us probably than the horses though. LOL

Rather than build a separate building for each pasture - we built one building 12x16 and put it in the center of the divided fence and then installed boards on the inside to split the building. That way, we're building one building but it serves 2 separate pastures. For our 4 stallion pastures, we have two buildings at each division of the fence/pasture so there is actually a 12x8 half on each side for both pastures. All of our buildings are standard horse size - not mini - keeping in mind resale if ever we wanted to sell as an equestrian (or even cattle) farm.

Because we use high tinsel fencing (this was argued in separate post but works beautifully for us for years) - I didn't want electric wires where I'd be going in/out the building with the horse - just as a safety precaution - so I installed a section of board fence where the fence divides at the front of the building. This also allows them to nuzzle and touch eachother without electric and a place to hang their feed buckets at feeding time. The large gates are drive-thru gates so tractors & equipment can get into each pasture. I didn't catch him fast enough though as I would have preferred them in the back of the buildings so they didn't stick out so much LOL.

Our barn isn't quite finished yet but I added that also.

The pictures below should help explain the above and are are during the construction phase but they are the most recent I have on hand:

this is our ongoing project:

 

[Crystalbank]

What a beautiful barn!

 

[SaddleTrail]

Ok, now I am drooling!

I love your place and wish I could do all of that but only have a little over a acre!!

 

[Matt73]

Gorgeous! I wish I had big paddocks like that. I really only have the one and then a dry lot that I use only when it's nicely covered in snow in the winter as it's concrete. So, I rotate the horses in the one paddock in the spring, summer, fall. Teddy goes out in the morning and then Royal and Lex go out in the afternoon. We are going to put in another paddock, but it's hard for Kev to give up even a little of the 1000 acres that we use for cash crops

Oh well, that pays the bills (the horses sure don't LOL).

 

[WhiteTailsMinis]

thanks everyone - still an ongoing project. And we both work full time jobs so all this stuff gets done on weekends - we love the 3-day holiday weekends LOL. He's so ready to get onto his own things and take a break from "horse things". LOL Since we're not on the farm full time I have to really think out my planning and try to make things as logical and easily operated as I can. Although you always find something at the end that you wished you had thought of before.

Hopefully now we can rotate the horses still out in the front pastures so the new grass will grow in and we can fertalize and lime without the horses on it. I have to drive the Polaris Ranger to the other fields for feeding and checking - exercise would probably do me good but then it would take me three times as long if I walked it all (and it's way too cold out there for that). LOL

The big barn - the plan was that the office would have a heater in it so we'd be comfortable this year watching over our mares as they get close to foaling. Well, not only do we not have a heater - we don't even have the office walls yet! LOL I kept one 12x12 section to make an office - that's where you see the white exterior door in the picture - so you can enter/exit without opening the big sliders and letting in all the cold. We did 12x12 stalls and divided them with a removable center wall so each stall is 12x6. Trust me it is plenty big enough for these little ones to foal in - no problems last year at all. I have 14 12x6 stalls in that barn and a 12x12 office (when the office gets completed - it just stores stuff now). The office will have a plexiglass cutout like a picture window so we can look over all the stalls from the office.

Here's a shot from last year '08 of Momma & newborn pretty cozy in their 12x6:

I understand about the cash crops - we cut our own hay so have to make sure I leave enough land for that (oh and course he won't give up the BioLogic deer fields either LOL). I also have big horses with their own pasture.

 

[Relic]

This is ours what you see is on about 20 acres and home to around 40 minis...behind the house are 10 stallion paddocks all except 2 have access to there own small pasture for summer. Each stallion paddock is either 5 or 10' apart leaving a nifty allyway for going through to feed and haul water or let the weaners run around in and chew down the grass. The front of the barn is a dust bowl for the diet people the barn has 8 stalls a big tack room trailer area and stores 20 round bales of hay for winter. The mares have there own set of huts behind the barn and we have 2 big pastures for field rotation.. in the front by the road is the mare and foal paddock which now has a small 6 stall barn on it not shown in the picture and it's the place we teach them to drive.. further down by the bush is my 4 stall seniors barn and summer field of 5 acres mostly in bush the other 120 acres are in hay...it was a fight to get the stallion setup right out my back window but l yelled the loudest and won now it's one of the best things we did because this way none of them is left out with whatever goes on at the farm...and stallions seem to know everything before l even do sometimes.

 

[mydaddysjag]

You've got some good input so far, and wow, what nice setups. If Jill doesn't chime in send her a PM, I know she has some detailed pictures of her setup, and Im prety sure she has small buildings in paddocks for a lot of her horses.

 

[Crystalbank]

Wow, don't think I'll ever have anything quiet so big as that setup, but that's an impressive aerial view!

 

[midnight star stables]

I'm getting a new camera, I'll take pictures then

 

[WhiteTailsMinis]

Relic - that belongs on a magazine cover! Very nice.

we provide a run-in for each pasture but I find that even though it does your heart good to know it's there for them, they'll stand out there with rain and snow on their backs. LOL I find they use it to seek shelter from the extreme heat more than the winter elements. Do the rest of you find that your horses prefer to stand outside rather than go in the run-ins?

 

[Annabellarose]

WhiteTailsMinis,

OVERWHELMING "yes" here.

 

[Annabellarose]

I had a 30' by 50' metal pole barn professionally built and now my husband and I are building 5 10' by 10' wooden stalls ourselves along the entire length of the left side of the barn. The first 3 stalls are going to be for my Miniature Horses and are going to be 4' 6" high, with solid wood front, side, and back walls. The last 2 are going to be for my "big" horses (a Quarter Horse mare and a Paint Horse gelding) and are going to be 8' high, with solid wood side and back walls and a metal grill on the front from 4' 6" up to 7'. We are building the first 3 stalls so that they can easily be converted (thinking of resale) to look just like the last 2 stalls by adding more wood (more height) to the side and back walls and by inserting a metal grill and by adding more wood on the front wall. We are almost finished with the second stall; we just have to hang the door (which is finished) and install the stall latch, kick bolt, and handle. After we finish all of the stalls, we are going to build a 10' by 10' raised and insulated tack room/office to the right, at the front of the barn. I want a vermin-free place to store halters, leadropes, my working/training harness, metal feed bins, supplements, wormer, fly masks, fly spray, bandages, grooming tools, and the like. I hope to have room in one corner for a small (18" by 27"), upright computer stand/desk that has room for a computer, a printer, and a telephone. I also hope to have room for a small camping cot during foaling season; I don't breed often.

Last Summer my husband and I built a 10' by 20' metal pole barn run-in shed to match (colors) my professionally built metal pole barn. My Arabian mare is there this Winter, but she is for sale and I will put a couple of Miniatures there as soon as she sells and the small pasture around it has had ample time to rest and recover.

I have 2 pregnant Miniature Horse mares and 1 yearling Miniature Horse colt at the moment. I hope to never have more than 1 pregnant Miniature Horse mare again in the future; I bought these 2 pregnant. I don't think I will feel compelled to condition/work and campaign more than 2 Miniature Horses at a time. I only intend to keep my Quarter Horse mare and my Paint Horse gelding. With this setup I feel that I have room to add a few Miniature Horses to my herd if I want to (and you know I do!). My colt is for sale and I doubt that I will keep either of my coming foals (1 maybe, 1 definitely not), so that will leave me with possibly 1 free stall and a free 10' by 20' run-in shed that could house a couple of mares and/or geldings together if they all got along (and I know that isn't always the case).

 

[TheCaseFamily00]

I'm saving for a barn right now ,we plan on building ourself, any money saving ideas would be great!Thanks for starting this thread

.

 

[WhiteTailsMinis]

The first 3 stalls are going to be for my Miniature Horses and are going to be 4' 6" high, with solid wood front, side, and back walls.

While our stall walls are wood, we used "slatted" boards - meaning we left an inch (or so) space inbetween each vertical board so that they could see eachother and know they weren't alone. It also helps airflow so they get some air but not enough to cause a harmful draft in the winter.

The vertical slats are on the fronts and sides but of course the back is solid (against the metal of the building) and the very end wall on those stalls are solid (same reason). I never have just one horse alone in the barn - the slats allow them to see their "buddy" so they feel as though they have company and not so isolated.

I'm not sure about the solid walls on all 4 sides - mainly for airflow but they really are herd animals. Our slats are close enough that foaling stalls side by side still offer each mare the privacy they need to not feel threatened with their newborn by the horse next door. It also gives us the ability to "peek" without disturbing them totally.

Oh, and we also put treated 4x4s under the gate doors and dividing wall so tiny foals couldn't roll under and out or get caught underneath (I think that shows in the pictures). And on the removable center dividing walls, we put a gate. That way if you have a horse in for a longer period, you can latch that gate to the back wall and they have two stalls opened up together. Most recently, we use that gate to allow two stalls to go outside the barn door into the little paddock - I think that is shown in these pics as well.

These pics are old during construction (only first coat of stain) but show the detail:

 

[Crystalbank]

That looks so neat and tidy!

More pics everyone - I'm nosey!

 

[Annabellarose]

The first 3 stalls are going to be for my Miniature Horses and are going to be 4' 6" high, with solid wood front, side, and back walls.

While our stall walls are wood, we used "slatted" boards - meaning we left an inch (or so) space inbetween each vertical board so that they could see eachother and know they weren't alone. It also helps airflow so they get some air but not enough to cause a harmful draft in the winter.

The vertical slats are on the fronts and sides but of course the back is solid (against the metal of the building) and the very end wall on those stalls are solid (same reason). I never have just one horse alone in the barn - the slats allow them to see their "buddy" so they feel as though they have company and not so isolated.

I'm not sure about the solid walls on all 4 sides - mainly for airflow but they really are herd animals. Our slats are close enough that foaling stalls side by side still offer each mare the privacy they need to not feel threatened with their newborn by the horse next door. It also gives us the ability to "peek" without disturbing them totally.

I am using high quality, surfaced (S4S), solid pine boards, not plywood (or worse, OSB), which I think is completely unsafe for horse application due to the potential for splintering, rotting, splitting, etc.

I come from the "big" horse world and I still own a couple of "big" horses. I deliberately wanted to make my stalls so that they could easily be converted to "big" horse stalls later. I am very pleased with my design/work as I am sure that you are yours, but it would not work for me or for my situation. As always, "to each their own!"

I have never seen a professionally built "big" horse stall/stall package (or Miniature Horse stall/stall package for that matter as we did shop around for Miniature Horse stalls/stall packages and actually almost decided to buy from Country Manufacturing before we decided to build our own) that had slated walls (I will not argue that they do not make them, just that I have never seen them and that I know that they are not commonly used). I would never use slated walls for a "big" horse application and I can honestly say that I do not know anyone that would.

I saw to it that my metal pole barn had proper ventilation (along the entire length of the top of the roof, along the entire length at the eaves on both sides, and at both ends) for horse application.

 

[luv2ridesaddleseat]

Whitetailsminis, what size are your stalls?

Thanks

Joyce

 

[Crystalbank]

Do you have any pics of your setup Annabellrose?

 

[WhiteTailsMinis]

Ouch - I didn't mean anything negatie whatsoever - sorry if it came across that way. I was just offering a suggestion for minis - not big horses (as they are different of course) - that I had learned they needed ventilation and thought perhaps solid walls over 4 foot high might not provide enough air to a mini down below the height of the walls. Lots of places use wire panels and cattle panels to divide stalls - you are right to each their own. I'm still learning and maybe sometimes the information I receive or read isn't always the correct info - but my comment was based on what I'd learned and what worked for us - not to insult anyone else's way but maybe to help another newbie looking for ideas.

We were able to build from wood cheaper than purchase all the panels. Actually, most of the wood for our barns and buildings come from trees we cut off our farm and send to the Amish sawmill to cut for us. No OSB or plywood for us either.

I'm no expert - continually learning and this forum is most helpful always. It's a great place to share information and learn some new tricks of the trade.

Joyce - we started by building 12x12 stalls and then put a removable center wall to divide into two 12x6 stalls. I think I placed a picture and some detailes further up in this thread (rather than repeat it here).