Modest Horse Barn Suggestions???

[MSamson]

Thanks for the pics Mike. I now understand why you're not worried about coming down to the ground with your siding. My siding is all wood. After reading what you posted, I think it makes sense to go 36 x 36. I checked with the ciment plant and got a cost of 2500$ canadian or approx. 1875$ u.s. for a full 36 x 36 x 6 inch slab. I'll poor on top (of the slab) a 6 inch footing or use blocks to rest the out side walls on. I've attached a sketch of the barn. The plan includes an 8' runin making the front elevation 44' long. The plan is for five 12x12 stalls with a closed tack room. Give me your opinion. Am I heading the right way with this project? It's an all new venture for us (wife and I). Pre-retirement!! Thanks for your input!

Mike

[MikePA]

Very nice looking barn! [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img] The only thing I'd be leery of is having concrete floors in the stalls. IMO, you'll need to have mats and plenty of bedding (we use wood chips). Horses produce a lot of liquid [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] and it's gotta go somewhere. Since it can't soak into the concrete, the only thing left is the bedding. You might be going through a lot of it, and it's heavy when it's wet. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img]

Our stalls had clay in them, based upon a recommendation by our builder. Big mistake. When soaked, it was very plastic, like walking on a half filled water bed. Then it hardened in various hills and valleys. This made cleaning the stalls torture. We, well my wife, who cleans the stalls (I do the heavy lifting [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] ) lived with this for 10 years. We tried stall mats, stall liners, nothing worked...until I dug out all the stalls (by hand), down 12 inches, installed a geotextile fabric (to keep the stones from sinking into the ground) and put in a limestone base topped by stone dust. We used Groundmaster Stall Mats on top of that. In the center of each stall, (before I put the stones in) I buried a 30 gallon plastic barrel in which I drilled large holes in the top and bottom. My wife hasn't been so happy! We use a lot less bedding, the stalls stay dry, and the mats keep the horses from pawing holes in the floor.

We also have heat in the tack room and I wish we had a sink with hot and cold running water. We also installed upper kitchen cabinets on the walls in the tack room to store all the odds and ends. I installed a set of attic steps in the ceiling of the tack room for access to the hay loft. Frankly, the tack room could be bigger.

Where will you store the hay, feed, bedding?

Make sure that the barn is a little higher than the surrounding ground level so rain water and melted snow do not run towards the barn.

Our barn is situated so that the aisle is on the east/west axis and when both end doors are open, the breeze blows through.

Will you have a trailer? If so, where will you park it?

What about a driveway? Big enough to turn a truck trailer around in? Big enough to handle hay delivery? Easy access to where the hay is stored?

Outside hydrants? Hydrants and outlets in the aisle? Outside electrical outlets?

Height of the aisle tall enough to handle a truck or a tractor with the ROPS up?

Mght want to consider a runin for storing things like wheelbarrows, manure spreader, etc.?

Will your pasture and fences be arranged so the horses will have easy access to stalls/barn?

In addition to the sliding doors at each end of the aisle, we also have gates that can keep the horses in while still allowing a breeze.

Any questions, just holler.

[MSamson]

No problem for heigt. I'm going full 12 ft on first level with 12ft wide center aisle. The second floor is 10 ft high. I will rise the ground base on 0-3/4 crushed stone in order to drain all around. The front will be pointing east. The wind is mostly south west to north east and vise versa. If I was to go with non cement for the stalls, would you recomend that I run an agriculture drain through the stalls and dispurse the waste in the pasture? I guess what I'm wondering is, should I collect the urine in drums in each stall or evacuate it by drainage? As for driving up and turning around, I'll be making it right. I'll be able to drive to the front doors and u-turn with a trailer. I was also planning on putting a folding latter in the tack room to acces the second floor. The hay will be taken down by a chute that is at the edge of the firts stall. Using the principal of a soft drink can dispenser. The chute will be filled with the bails and extracted as needed. I imagine filling up the chute once every week or two. The thing I have not thought of, was the room for the shavings [img]/forums/images/icons/confused.gif[/img] Where do you keep yours?? As for the tack room should I condem a second stall a make the stable a 4 stall unstead of a 5 stall one?

[MikePA]

<font color="blue"> should I collect the urine in drums in each stall or evacuate it by drainage? </font color>
I'd go for drainage. In our case, the ground soaks it up, after 'percolating' through the limestone. Perhaps others will chime in to indicate what they do. I think some of them have concrete stalls.

<font color="blue"> I was also planning on putting a folding latter in the tack room to acces the second floor. </font color>
I just replaced the set of attic steps. Ten years ago, I installed the folding wooden kind (the kind with a spring on each side) with the kind that uses pistons instead of springs. It allows you to fold the steps, raise the door, and let it go. The pistons slow the retraction into the ceiling. Lowe's had both kinds. Werner Ladder

<font color="blue"> The thing I have not thought of, was the room for the shavings Where do you keep yours?? As for the tack room should I condem a second stall a make the stable a 4 stall unstead of a 5 stall one? </font color>
We keep the bales of chips underneath the upper kitchen cabinets we installed. We can get 16 bales there. We stack the unopened feed bags next (left) to the chips on 2 PT boards to keep them from absorbing moisture from the concrete. We have 2 plastic garbage cans, with snap lids, that we pour the feed into. These 2 cans are also in the tack room, so it gets kind of crowded.

Attached to this message, and the one to follow, are pictures of our tack room. It's also 12' x 12'. The object to the left of the feed containers is a small refrigerator. As you can see, we also have a phone and electric heat (bottom picture in the next message).

[MikePA]

Second tack room montage.

[MSamson]

Mike,

I wish to thank you for all the know how your are transferring. You've given me more than anyone could have anticipated on the subject plus you've backed up all of your opinions on the matter with facs, pics and web link. As I will go along with our project (wife and I), don't be surprise if I chase you on countrybynet to answer questions that are surely to come up.

Best wishes!

M.Samson

[MikePA]

<font color="blue">As I will go along with our project (wife and I), don't be surprise if I chase you on countrybynet to answer questions that are surely to come up.</font color>
I'm glad to be of assistance. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Pat]

You can bury a perforated pipe in the underfloor gravel (wrap with geotextile) and run it from stall to stall then outside to a dry well. Well designed, this can remove much of the liquid to a remote outdoor location. This assumes the locaton of the dry well will "perk" adequately for the size and depth you employ.

You really should consider taking pains to ensure that your subfloor gravel bed doesn't become a reservoir for rainwater (or any other liquid.)

[img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[MikePA]

I thought of something else....having an electrical outlet near enough to each stall for things like a heater in a water bucket or a fan.

Fan - we've had a situation where one of our horses was sick (I forget what the problem was) but the vet's instructions (in addition to prescribing drugs) were to keep the horse in the stall and do our best to keep him cool since it was the middle of summer. I had to rig up a big window fan so it would hang on his stall door and blow through the bars. That wasn't so bad, but getting an electrical cord to the stall door was 'fun'.

heater - we've found that sometimes the horses don't drink enough if the water is too cold. We've had to keep 2 sets of water buckets. One set is in the stalls and the other is in the tack room to keep it warm.

[MSamson]

Mike,

What is your opinion on insulating for the winter and what about winter ventilation?