Where to put stables - by the house or in the field?

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kit279

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I've got a set of mobile stables coming as a stop-gap over winter. The question is where to put them:-

Option 1 - right by the house in back garden. Garden is big, 0.75 acres. Pros - house would provide light by floodlight and ready supply of water. Easy to deliver feed and bedding. Cons - have to bring horses through garden from field which would mean bringing in two horses as the one left behind would raise merry hell and the one being led would also kick up a stink. This could be difficult! Probably would mean fencing off a bit of the garden. Also would have to get the haylage moved into the garden - this means finding a kindly person with a tractor.

Option 2 - in the field. Pros - easy to put the horses in and out. No extra fencing required. Don't need to move the haylage. Cons - No electricity, no easy access to water. If the weather is freezing, will be difficult to get water into the stables. Definitely more exposed in the field, could be facing into the wind depending on site. Might be difficult to site them as the ground slopes a little.

Which would you go for?

Both are a compromise and I'm not sure which to go for. Any thoughts?
 
I would go for near the house. Esp during winter you will be so glad of the elec and running water! I'm sure they can learn to be without the other for a couple of moments each day.
 
In the garden, for me, being able to have electricity and see what I am doing....and have easy access to water outweighs the hassle of bringing 2 in at the same time.
I'm also a little bit envious, I'd love to have my ponies in the garden!! :)
 
I'd go for the near the house as well. The pros outweight the cons in my opinion and being more sheltered and closer to you, they should also be safer all round.
 
Inspite of the cons of having to fence off a bit of your garden, and having to get someone to shift the haylage, I'd go for having your stables near the house every time.

Our little stable yard and barn are all of 20 feet from the back door, and all the pros you mention apply - big time. The house's outdoor lights give good light to the yard. We have a stables tap but it's frozen solid at the moment, so water if close at hand in the kitchen. I can go out to see the horses any time without changing my shoes, I can hear if anything odd happens (like Sunday night when the naughty mountainy pony got up on the manure heap to keep her feet warm), I can dive back into the house for kettles or anything else I've forgotten - and the horses love the companionship of being close to the house. In this bad weather I've been popping out, when I let the dogs out at about midnight, to give the gees some extra haylage.

Last winter the horses were stabled in loose boxes the other side of our field and it was a total pain: trudging over the field in deep snow at dusk and trying to usher 3 of them into their respective boxes - no water up there, and of course once the frost set in there was no run-off from the roof, and I spent hours toting buckets of water up to them. The stables were out of sight, and we have some light-fingered people about. I couldn't face going up at midnight to see how haylage and water buckets were holding out, so they had about 16 hours unattended.

No - go for the ;near the house' option. I'm sure you won't regret it.
 
I would have them in the field. If you ever sell the property you would be able to offer it as both equestrian property and as two separate lots if the house buyer didnt want the horsey bit. Also if they werent horsey you wont have chopped off part of the value by chopping off part of the garden. I would bite the bullet on the power/water and get it put in, the uplift in property value would more than outweigh. Also with the best kept stables in a hot summer there can be an interesting aroma.

I always want to be able to see the stables from the house, but not close enough to smell them!
 
Yes, but these are temporary - they don't need to be there forever so the thing about property uplift doesn't yet apply!
 
kit279 said:
Yes, but these are temporary - they don't need to be there forever so the thing about property uplift doesn't yet apply!
Click to expand...

But would you like to eventually get permanent ones? If not then stick them wheres easiest for you, but bear in mind muck heaps and door kickers! If yes then stick them where the permanent ones would ideally go.

But it sounds as if you might be leaning towards near house. If in the curtilage of the domestic house and garden that would help from a planning point of view, if you ever decide to make them permanent in that location.
 
Could you compromise - in the back garden but near the field? Thus near enough to run some electricity, to walk to get warmer water if needed (or run a tap) and to get some benefit from the house lights, see them from your window without them necessrily seeing you so easily, and sufficiently far thet you're not constantly walking in hay, mud etc.to the house.
 
I think I'd avoid the garden like the plague. 0.75 isn't that big by the time you've sited the stables, the muckheap etc, and a lot of it would get churned up with the horses walking up and down... Muckheaps always get huge over winter, and you usually need tractors to remove them etc. In summer there would be more flies etc.

I'd put them in the corner of the field nearest the house (does the field back onto the garden?). You can run lights to temp stables from a car battery (sees ticky thread in the Stable Yard part). We run a hose to the stables from our house (150yds away) for water, and also run water off the roof into vats. OK they freeze at certain times of year, and I carry buckets down from the house, but its only for a few weeks max usually, and not that bad (I'm filling a tub and sliding it down on a sledge each morning!)
 
Put them in the garden, and fence off the section where you lead them through with posts and electric tape and then don't worry about it being trashed - just ignore it!

Just get the area rolled in the spring and you won't even notice after a few weeks - honestly! If this weather keeps up then the benefits of having water, light, bit of extra shelter, and horses nearby will outweigh a bit of muddy garden.
 
Garden.

Surface a walkway wide enough for two horses so you don't end up with a mud bath of a path.

Pros outweigh the cons to my eyes. My barn is 50' from the backdoor, my muckheap is on the other side of the barns (which are 60' long) and never cause a problem. I love being able to nip out and check the stalled horses last thing at night and it is especially convenient when I have mares foaling. I have power, water and phone lines in there anyway.

If you are concerned about smells/flies in summer stick a shelter up in the field and use that.
 
I'd put them in the garden. Our 'garden' is the stable yard, where we also park our cars. We have trained our horses to bring themselves in, when we open the field gate. They always come in in the same order and all know which stable to go into. If you could train yours to do the same, that would solve the problem of having to lead 2 horses.
 
Muckheap would go in the field - we have a trailer that we would fill up and just emty once a week. The most amazing thing about the house and land is the sandy soil - it just does NOT get muddy. It pissed it downed for 3 days solid and barely stuck to my shoes - I could not believe it.

I think the consensus right now is outside the back door. I'm actually quite looking forward to it! :)
 
I have very similar to your set-up
My stables are in my garden, just out of my door, so we bring horses from the field through the garden (although I do have a longer way round if necessary). My muck heap is also at the end of the garden and gets huge, but much of it gets used in garden or removed by keen gardeners :). The path through garden does get muddy but this is probably the only the disadvantage.
The advantages of having them so close are huge! If they're in, you can just nip out in pj's to do early morning feeds and tie hay up. You can do last minute checks at night. It doesn't seem so bad when the weather is awful (as it is here at the moment) because you don't have to trudge across wet/muddy/snowy fields to do all those jobs. Definitely go for as close to house as possible.

Sue
 
Id have them close to the house, for the electricity and water and then when it came to bringing them in, id bring 1 in, who can create if need be in the stable, then go back to get the other 2 (who will be quietly waiting in the field like angels lol)

Thats what I used to do with mine but now Im lazy and there all really good friends I just bring all of them together (and now there are 4 of them!!

oh i read it that you had 3 horses! Is it too narrow to lead them at the same time?
 
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Llewelyn said:
Put them in the garden, and fence off the section where you lead them through with posts and electric tape and then don't worry about it being trashed - just ignore it!

Just get the area rolled in the spring and you won't even notice after a few weeks - honestly! If this weather keeps up then the benefits of having water, light, bit of extra shelter, and horses nearby will outweigh a bit of muddy garden.
Click to expand...

I 100% agree with this and it is just what I was going to write.
 
in the garden they will soon enough get used to the routine and know which stable is theirs so long as you have a fenced walk way you will soon be able to open gate and they will take their selves to their own stables i do it with my lot.
 
I'd put them in tha garden, I have a similar set up but permenant stables so have lighting, taps etc. Have to lead them down our drive which is gravelled and across or down the lane (say 1/4 mile) depending on the field they go in every day. When all 4 go out I take 2 at a time but recently one was at the vets for a few weeks so I bought 1 in first and popped him in his stable (if you think yours would panic you could always shut the top door the first few times) and then went back for the other 2. They do sometimes shout when one is taken away but they soon realise the routine after a few days.

I have my muck heap in the field so a bit of a walk with the barrow but no smell near the house, one is a door banger though so we get an early wake up call! I love having them outside my back door and recently when my old lad coliced if I hadn't heard him thrashing around at 1am the vet said he would have been dead by the morning.
 
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