I need advice on building a horse barn/shelter

[EddieWalker]

We will be getting horses in a few months. They are both quarter horses that where born back in the spring of this year. Same dad, different moms. One is a boy, the other a girl. I'm not a horse person and I have no plans to ride them or really do anything with them. Karen loves horses and this has been her life long dream. She plans on riding them around the land from time to time, but mostly they will just be pasture ornaments.

The current owners of the horses, and a dozen others, just keeps them in a pasture without a barn or any type of cover. Their attitude is they get used to it and they don't have to have a barn. There are plenty of trees for them to get out of the rain if they want to, but they never do. Winter isn't that bad here either.

Our thinking is that we want a place for them to be able to get out of the rain or wind if they want to.

My first thought was to build a simple loafing shed. Three walls and a roof. Enclose one end of it, or the middle section for storage and let the horses come and go as they please. I still might do this because it seems to meet all our goals.

Then the builder in me takes over, and I start drawing up plans with stalls. http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/freepubs/pdfs/ub033.pdf has all the details on what I would do, but then I start to question why I would go to all this trouble when in all reality, we expect the horses to be out in the pasture all of the time anyway.

Is there a reason to have horse stalls? Is there a reason to lock them up inside a barn?

Thank you,
Eddie & Karen

 

[EarPlug]

The only real reason to have a stall is for any medical problems that would require containment. However this is really rare.

Our winters here in Denver are a little tougher than yours and our animals have free access to the barn. Then are never locked up. They do "hide" in the stalls when the weather gets rough.

If I was starting from scratch I would just have a loafing shed or 2. Two with the openings in different directions for weather. Or a single 2 sided shed with a center wall so the openings face different directions.

The other part of this post indicates that your are getting 2 young horses and have no experience with horses. This is a major undertaking!
Who is going to train them?
This will take a year or more of professional help.
You probably won't be riding them for 2 years or more from now.
They will require almost daily training to make them safe and reliable.

If Karen does not have much experience with horses it would be much better and safer to get a 5-8 year old well trained horse to start with. Especially if you are looking to "ride the property once in a while".

 

[i579rbd]

Hi Eddie,
I think you are good to hook with a three sided run in. Echoing Earplug I would recommend getting horses that are already broke and seasoned. Training horses from scratch is a very time consuming experience and you have to do it consistently. I worked at a boarding stable as a kid and married a woman with horses. Somewhere on TBN I read a quote that had me rolling laughter as it is so true. it went something like "horses eat money and sh&t work".
For the run in I would recommend you have power and light. Might not use either very often but nice to have when you need it. Also will you have water tank are use some type of automatic watering system. No disrespect intended-are you tracking barbed wire is not fencing horses?

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you. I didn't think of the openings facing different directions. I'll have to give that some thought.

Karen has some experience with horse, but it's been a dozen years or more. Her trainer at the gym has her degree in horses and is who has volunteered to help us out with training them. There are also a few friends from the hospital where she works who have horses and have said they will help us out.

I'm perfectly happy if they just eat grass.

Eddie

 

[Fred Barbour]

Eddie: Getting horses that young especially with no horse knowledge is a major undertaking. Young horses need proper training from an experienced trainer to be useful safe riding horses. I would suggest you have your wife take riding lessons prior to taking on the responsibility of horse ownership. A few months of training including ground work will determine if your wife has the ability and necessary knowledge for horse ownership.

An untrained 1,000 lb horse can hurt you quick if you don't know what your doing.

I have had and trained horses for over twenty years, my wife is a riding instructor. Too many people have jumped into horse ownership without the proper knowledge and it usually doesn't end well for the horse.

For your question regarding a horse shelter, yes they need one to make things comfortable in bad weather. There are some people who may disagree and my answer to them is, "you go out and stand in the rain 24/7 and see if you like it!!

Good luck in your future endeavour.

Fred

 

[hosspuller]

I've had horses at home (NC) for almost 20 years... I'll vouch for everything previously said.

Plus be warned that this is an endeavor that eats money as well as hay. Even if you don't shoe the horses, they have to be trimmed. Annual vet visit for health. ( coggins certificate... shots, teeth) check, etc...cost $65 (farm call) just for the vet to drive to the barn!

My horses do well with a single three sided shed. The opening faces AWAY from the prevailing winds. The horses hide in the shed during the summer days from the heat and biting bugs. During the winter, they're in the shed when it's wet, windy and cold. Any two of the three conditions, they chose to be out.

More important... There is a saying about horses and people. Green horses (untrained) and green people (casual owners) equal black and blue (bruises ...at best) Better get already trained horses. They would be better suited for an occasional calm and "safe" ride around. Most young horses need constant riding and training (more than once a week) sessions to be a safe ride. (unless your wife is a rodeo rider that likes the bucking bronc.)

Also ... if the young and cute horses don't get any training they grow up to be large, obnoxious, and dangerous. Then they are worthless except to eat & sh..t


PS ... build the shed high & wide enough so the FEL can reach the back wall to scrape out the sh..t. Saves a lot of work.

 

[blueriver]

Eddie ... An advantage to stall besides what's been said ... Hands on the horses daily which is good. I like stalling a young horse forces me to go in get the halter and lead on bring him out and tie him to the rail as I clean the stall .. A horse tied to the rail learns patience .. Then lead them to the pasture and bring them in at night to feed .. Again hands on and that's good for horse and owner ,

 

[EarPlug]

"Amateur" training is going to result in "Amateur" results.

Training a horse is completely different than training a dog. If you treat a baby horse like a dog, just playing around like a dog, you can create a dangerous 1000 pound animal that has no respect for humans.

Since you will be getting yearlings you will need to do "ground" training for the next year before you even get to riding training.

When time to start riding training (formerly called "breaking") you should enlist the help of a Professional Trainer for 1-3 months @ $1000/month. What you will get back is a "Started" or "green broke" horse. Now it is time to spend 1 to 3 hours PER DAY per horse building experience and safety. BTW you will need to build a Round Pen and/or Arena area for training. Working them in an open pasture is not safe.

It is going to take hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars of over the next 3 years to develop these 2 horses into Safe and Reliable riding horses.

Save yourself a lot of time and money and get a couple of 5-10 year old finished horses that you can start riding tomorrow.

 

[EddieWalker]

This is similar to what I'm thinking if I go with the simple idea of just creating two open stalls and a storage room in the middle. I'll make the stalls bigger then show in the pics and change a few things around, but overall, this seems like a pretty good starting point.

Your thoughts?

Eddie

 

[whistlepig]

We keep three horses out year round with a three sided run-in shed. We also have a barn with stalls. As mentioned sometimes a horse may have to be stalled so they can't run for a brief amount of time do to lameness. We board horses. From time to time we will get a horse that doesn't like another horse and will not let it in the run-in shed. I have bolted gate hinges to the backside of the shed so that I can hang a gate in the shed as a divider and that has worked for us.

For the floor we filled with "chips and dust" gravel, ran a compactor over it, and carpeted it with TSC rubber horse mats. It makes cleaning the shed so much easier.

 

[hosspuller]

A thought about pasture pasture ornaments... You would do yourself and Karen a favor by adopting retired horses. Generally, they've served someone well, their training well established so months can go by and they still behave well under saddle, AND most important ... you would be giving a horse and owner a well deserved place & peace.

 

[DelSc]

Hi Eddie
Our two horses like the kind of shelters you showed. I have a two 12x12 stall barn with a tack room in the middle which is an almost identical prefab building like you showed, except the openings have doors. We almost aways leave the doors open so they can come and go as they please. We only use the doors to separate the horses when we give them grain so they dont fight over it. In my opinion, the horses like going into the shelter during the heat of the day rather than be outside, because the flies dont swarm all over their face like when they stand in the pasture. Not sure if its the same there, but if you go out into a horse pasture in the heat of the day in our area, the flies will be all over you, but if you step into the shelter, they mostly leave you alone.
Thanks
Scott

 

[DelSc]

Heres a picture of our little set up. You can see the stall doors are open (tack room door is usually shut except when were using it). The other thing we use the stall doors for is keeping the horse contained while we tack them up. These arent all our horses. A bunch of friends from a nearby barn rode over for a visit that day.

 

[hogheadCTD]

Here is my next project, I think I will modify it slightly so it only has one opening due to harsh winters. Run In Lean To Shed Plans | Horse Barn | Horse Barn Plans

 

[EddieWalker]

Is there an advantage to having doors over leaving the one wall open? We thought that we could always put a gate on the openings and either keep it open or closed, depending on the need.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[whistlepig]

If you have doors on a run-in shed it kind of defeats the purpose. It should be a place that is easily accessible to horses. You can add gates that are easily removed. Ours is set up that way. We very rarely mount the gates.

 

[hogheadCTD]

The doors will get banged up by the horses in my opinion. I think a gate would work fine.

 

[DelSc]

I think the advantage of the run in shed over a stall (that is used as a run in shed) is that your horses are less prone to injure each other if they decide to "rough house" inside, or both go for the open door at once. Its easier to squeeze both horses out the open side of a run in shed than out an open stall door. Our horses get along really well and have been together for more than 10 years, so they are safe to turn out with an open stall. Some horses would not be safe to turn out that way, but would be just fine with a run in.

 

[whistlepig]

If you do build and it is a metal building make sure it has a wooden kick panel inside. They do sometimes kick in a shed and they can destroy metal siding quickly.

 

[whistlepig]

With boarded horses the only problem we have had is when a gelding has ran with a mare for while. When a new gelding is brought in sometimes they will fight over the mare and have to be separated. We have a gelding here now that we had to separate do to fighting over a mare. No two horses are the same.