American barns & internal stables, layout ideas etc..

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showjump

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For those that have/ or have had horses living in them at some time, id be grateful of any advice on layout?
We have just purchased a house with field attatched, and have been granted planning for american barn and menage.
We are haying inside 5/6 internal stables, tack and brew room, hay and feed store and wash bay. Each stable is having a large window for them to stick there heads out of. Im struggling on where to locate everything, and im worried that i'll do it all and then wish id put tack room else where or something!

Any ideas from past experience would be great!
 
sounds great. i've done internal stables in 2 barns now, from my experience:
get drainage perfect, makes a big difference. e.g. the right concrete (additive to prevent urine affecting it), roughened just right, sloped just the way you want, etc.
have feed room just by door (easier for deliveries).
have tackroom in the middle ish (shortest distance to all stables)
either heat the tackroom and have room to hang rugs to dry (i do this), or have a separate rug room that's heated, this is a godsend.
have stables as big as possible... e.g. my 2 end stables use up the passageway and so have doors next to each other (with grille between) so the stables are 15' x 15', it makes a huge difference.
have stable grille distances small (less than 3" between grille bars) because horses will, very occasionally and sometimes utterly disastrously, kick them and get a foot stuck through (see a previous heartbreaking post on this) or get teeth through them and get stuck (one of mine did this, survived luckily).
i wouldn't have grille all the way along between horses, i find many hate it, they like privacy. i've got boards up across my grilles now, to prevent arguments!
a solarium is v useful, i have an equine sunswitch one (grids above 2 stables), or you can put it in the washbay.
lucky you, having it exactly as you want! good luck with the project.
 
Thanks for the info Kerilli.
OH builds arenas, concrete bases, fencing etc so concrete base shoud be spot on! As should arena!
Good idea about a rug room, may just make my tack room larger and have it in there. We are hoping to get a wind turbine so free electric! bonus.
Several years ago me and my dad bought a field and put 8 stables on it, menage etc. its lovely but now with house and land in back garden my old ards going to be sold. I cannot wait!- at mo the stables are outdoor and in winter i will be inside!

My dads company are making some fancy interal stables for me, (and also the steel frame for the building) so can specify most things! The internal grills are going to be soild plastic tounge and grove, may have small grill near front of stables. One of my lads hates horses being next to him, so ive designed it so all stables are on one side, and his one across the way on his own. He will love it! (although his big head my grow more!)

I will do progress reports and pics once we get going!
 
Think about the workflow of the yard - how are you going to be using it, are several horses coming and going at once, will you have stallions or foaling mares in there ever?
 
Make sure any passageways are wide enough - ideally you want to be able to easily walk a horse along the front of the stables without the others being able to reach out and nip them! You would be surprised how wide they need to be to make this not be able to happen!!

Also a spacious wash down area with cross ties and hot water.
Somewhere for the farrier
Somewhere tidy to store your mucking out tools etc (if you don't want mucky stuff in the tack room) - left in sight they immediately make it look untidy!
plumbing for washing machine in tack room - and one place i worked had an old fashioned washing line which you could raise up to the ceiling when not in use but it meant it didn't take up much space, you just lowered it down, put the washing on, raised it up again and it didn't get in the way but saved on tumbledrying electric.
 
The only one I've ever been in had little 'areas' across the passageway where we kept our tack, and no specific tack room. This worked fine for the DIY livery that it was. There was one large area with tie up room at the front enterance, which multi-tasked as a wash area, grooming area and place for the farrier. Having the wash area at the entrance was a god-send, as it meant you wern't trailing the mud from the field along the corridor to get to it. Also allowed farriers to park right by the door so their tools were handy for them.

If you were in the furthest stable, however, it felt like it was quite a walk from one end to the other, so I'd echo previous suggestions about trying to keep general ammenities like tack room/feed room etc. in the middle.

Our corridor was very wide, to the extent you could safely tie a horse in it and still pass by easily. This was useful for busy times when the grooming area up front got busy quickly, and we never had a problem with nipping (though a few horses did try!).
 
Thanks for replies, some usefull ideas. Wash bay close to entrance door is a good one, especially in winter with muddy legs!
Also like the washing machine idea, will have to write them all down so i dont forget!
 
Something to consider---you said you're having windows on the outside? It can work very well to actually have doors to the outside on each stall, leading out to either a field, or to separate little runs behind each stall. I've seen this setup a few times, and it allowed for horses to be either shut in their stables, given access to stable+run, or access to stable+run+field, depending on which gates were opened.
 
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