Help with barn stalls

   / Help with barn stalls #1  

TrentonMaple

New member
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
15
Location
Northern NY
Tractor
LS R3039
Hi

I've got a 24x36 timber framed barn I'm finishing up. The barn is made up of 3 bents or bays of 12' wide by 24' long.

(Here is a pic of it from another thread I made)

I've got it sided now and I'm moving on to making the stalls on the inside. I'm building a couple of box stalls to house some chickens, feeder pigs, and a jersey heifer. I'm going to make the box stall corners from rough cut 4x4 posts that run from the compacted sand floor up to the rafters, with 50" tall walls made from 2x8 rough cut white pine boards.

My question is with the vertical 4x4 posts that make the corners of the box stalls. I wasn't sure if I needed to sink the stall posts to the full 48" frost line depth that a load bearing post would need to be around here, or if they can just be buried a foot or so into the dirt floor to lock them in. Any suggestions?

This would save me a ton of money and time getting a post hole digger in if I didn't need them 48" down.
 
   / Help with barn stalls #2  
I know nothing (well almost nothing) about horses, but I did help my neighbor put horse stalls in his pole barn. He set his posts in concrete and he used 6x6 post. He then put 1" thick oak planks inside the stall to stand up against kicking and chewing. He had two big draft horses along with saddle horses and as far as I know he had no problem with his setup. Someone who knows horses will come along and give you some correct advise, good luck!
 
   / Help with barn stalls #3  
A lot depends on your soil. Here, I would go 3’ and concrete in. This includes posts that get heavy cattle traffic. Our frost line isn’t as deep, but I’ve gone shallower than the frost line and never had a problem in instances like this. As long as it’s not structural, it’s not a big deal. But I would suggest the concrete to help hold everything in place, but again, your soil may pack tighter than mine.
 
   / Help with barn stalls #4  
For interior poles inside the building you are probably fine at two feet. One foot isn't going to do much of anything, three feet would be better. If your ground inside the barn is going to get as cold as outside the building, then you probably should go all the way and not have to worry about it. It really depends on just how cold it gets inside your building
 
   / Help with barn stalls #5  
What are you securing the 4x4 posts to? Our horses kick the crap out of the stalls we have in the one barn because they flex some and make noise. In the other barn all the posts are sunk 4' with rough sawn 2 by side panels aND tied together in the center and they seem to leave those stalls alone more. Granted it all depends on the horse to. I would build it as heavy as reasonable personally because I hate fixing things repeatedly.
 
   / Help with barn stalls #6  
I would set them 48" and tamp dense grade gravel around them. Not concrete... It will rot at ground level. My stall posts extend up to the loft beams. I'll try to find s pic of how I did them. Not real good pic image-335286459.png Used split stall doors with latches and 3/4" conduit for bars.


image-307317310.png
 
 
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