We didn't have a choice on stall design - we bought into a place where every stall is a different size. All have sliding doors, most of them are right on one edge, but a couple of the stalls have doors in the middle of the front wall. Its pretty convenient to be able to give them grain by just reaching around through the door and dumping the grain in the bucket without having to go in the stall. So in those stalls we have the feed bucket right inside to the left and the water buckets right inside to the right. Its nice when the horse is in there but we don't have to go in.
In the other stalls, the door was right up against one wall, so we only had the other side to put up the water buckets. Does it matter where the feed bucket goes? We put it on the other side of the water buckets, so both are on the front wall, to the right of the door. We could put the feed bucket on the left wall, where the door opens from, but if its close enough to reach by hand, then I would think it is in the way of the horse when he goes into the stall.
Wouldn't the best design be to have the door in the center, so you could have buckets on either side (inside) of the door?
Does anyone have the swing out feeders? Any comments on those?
Attached is a diagram how our stalls are set up. All items are inside the stall. Initially, we had the salt block and water bucket locations switched. However, we found that with the water bucket right next to the feed tray, the horses tended to drop food into the water bucket.
We dump the feed in through the opening in the bars, we fill the water bucket via a hose through the bars, the hay gets dropped in from the loft above.
The swing out feeders are nice. Just open a door and feed them. I built in ground feeders on mine. I just open the door and drop in the grain. I have hay chutes from the loft that I drop my hay down to the feeders. My water is just to the left of the feed door. That way I can just reach in through the stall bars with the hose and water them with the hose. Very easy.
The best though is whatever works for you. Different people have different ideas and ways to do things. No right or wrong just what is best for you. [img]/forums/images/icons/wink.gif[/img]
Thanks Mike, most of our feed buckets are next to the water buckets. While I don't see any grain in the water buckets, I do see hay in them. Which is kind of funny because the hay is in a pile over by the door. But its not a lot hay and they keep drinking. Wish I had a loft to drop hay from. The salt block is on the other side of the feed bucket. Half the horses ignore the salt blocks anyway.
For our first two horses (ours) , we got the all-in-one hay rack and feed tray (from TSC). For all that money, one horse immediately pulls all the hay out onto the floor and the other one doesn't care if its on the floor or not. So now we sweep up a clean area by the door and put hay there. And have $70 feed buckets for two horses.. [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img] Everyone else gets corner feeders.
I like those ideas.. would like to be able to fill up the water buckets without sticking my head in the stall and leaning in over the stall guard while a curious horse pokes his head in the middle.
This isn't something I would do to my stalls, but I've seen people that drill holes thru the stall fronts right above the water bucket. The hole is just slightly larger than the hose and is angled downward so that it holds the hose in the proper position when inserted. Then you can just stick the hose in and leave it unattended for a minute while filling and you can sweep or feed or whatever while you are watering.
Our guys are like your Pete - We have hay racks in all the stalls but just throw the hay on the ground since they pull it all out before they eat it anyway. Amazing how different all the horses habits are. We have found that keeping the water away from the grain buckets helps keep the water cleaner as they don't dump QUITE so much grain in the water that way.
Nature says a horse is suppose to eat off the ground and if you find an excess of hay and grain in the water bucket you might want check their teeth.bcs
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