Please Share: Barn Plans and Ideas

[jsites]

We are moving in May and I'm planning my new barn. I'd love advice. I'm looking for barn floorplans that are mini friendly. I currently have a 20' x 24' area inside my barn that acts as a run in for the dry lot. I'd like to have two of these in my new barn but when I add those, foaling stalls and hay storage my barn gets bigger...and bigger. Do you like run ins inside the barn, run in sheds, or a shed roof on the side of the barn. Is the shed roof worth the extra money? Please share your thoughts on barn design does and don'ts.

I tried to add a drawing of my current barn plan but the forum format would not let me. Its a 36'x 64' with 10' walls and a 10' x 64' shed roof. I devided the barn in half (36'x32') for hay storage. In the other half a 6' x 32' isle down the center, four 8x14 stalls to the left and two 16'x16' run ins on the right side. I have left over material from another project to build a 8' x 10' Tack and Grain storage room on the side.

 

[fourluckyhorseshoes]

There is a topic on the Best Of section of the forum

 

[jsites]

I did look there. Lots of great ideas and info but most of the pictures are gone

My big question at this point is something that wasn't discussed much. Which do people like better. Run ins inside your barn, shed roofs, or run in sheds?

 

[Allure Ranch]

Jennifer,

I hope this will help you....

 

[Allure Ranch]

Here's another one of our barn.... Feel free to email me if you have any questions. The back side of our barn has (3) doors that exit into (3) attached paddock the run the length of the barn. It includes an over hang to protect the horses from the weather elements. If you'd like a video of it let me know.

 

[JMS Miniatures]

Hoping to build my dream barn in the next few years I plan on building turn outs from their stalls so they can go in and out. Would much prefer that then runs inside the barn.

 

[Allure Ranch]

Here's a photo example of our stalls....

 

[Rhondaalaska]

I just have a small one stall barn

that has a door that is open to Diva's padock

so she can come in or out as she wants.

It has a half door on the inside that

she can look at me when I open the main barn door.

I have hay and tack stored in the other half of the barn

 

[eagles ring farm]

We use our aisles in all 3 of our barns for run ins we also have some other separate run ins in other fields

I prefer the aisle ways which are just dirt ...love to just open stall doors to let the horses in and out

and then on days when the weather is too bad that we don't want them out we can leave them in the aisle 1 at a time to clean stalls or just let them in the hall 1 at a time for some not cooped up in a stall time and they can visit each other through their gates

It works well for a new foal which we have now with bad weather at least they can have a lot more room to run a little and still be inside in bad weather. So even though Id love to have nice neat cement aisles I still choose the dirt hallway for a run in purpose

here is a picture of 1 barn with 6 10x10 stalls

and the other barn-has 3 7x10 and 2 10x10 stalls

and an 8x8 foaling stall

 

[jsites]

Thank you! Yes Allure, that does help. I'm glad you shared. I've been worried that I have to much area set aside for run ins and not enough stalls. Using the aisle is a good idea Lori. How wide is your aisle?

 

[Marty]

Hi Jennifer, Since its Friday night and I'm bored I think I'll mess with your head & really confuse you LOL! The way I see it is you don't have near enough barn space for your amount of horses.

This is what I suggest you really think about:

Ask yourself a bunch of questions like:

How many horses do you expect to own at any one time?

How many horses must I provide foaling stalls for?
How many horses do I want under the same roof?

How many horses will I be showing and need to be stalled on a regular basis?

How many stalls do I want to clean daily?

How many horses can be in a lean-tu set up?

Things like that should help you decide exactly how you want to provide shelter space. The way I see it, you are going to be sacrificing a lot of barn space for hay. I don't do that for 2 reasons: #1 Fire hazzards #2 It takes up too much of my stall space. I had an old shed that was 16 X 20 (we tore it down last year because it was an eye sore) but I still have another building I use with is away from the main barn by about 30 feet. So you may want to consider giving yourself extra room for horses and use a separate building for hay storage.

Then you really have to think about bringing in outside horses for breeding ( I looked over your websitei). How exactly do you want to handle that? When I bred outside mares to my race horse stallion, I did keep those mares separate from mine in another barn. ( That was at least one smart thing I did in my mundane life.)

But one thing I have learned because now I am OLD and decrepit, I want all my horses under one roof because for me, its easier to feed and care for them rather than having them spread out all over the place. However I think horses do much better when they are outside as much as possible so if I had a breeding program back in place ( which I never will do again) I think I would opt for a huge and I mean huge couple of lean-tus and have the option of forcing them in it during terrible weather. (Leaving that decision up to a horse is never an option).

Presently, and when I was breeding miniatures, all horses were kept under the same roof including my stallion. When I got a little stupid and purchased more horses, we then built an additional two stall barn for the over flow where I would leave the doors opened, with a separate dry lot and ajoining pasture which was great. Horses that didn't appreciate the service in the main barn could go out in the two stall barn and complain out there to that management (the barn kitty).

So anyhow, think about how you want to house all of your horses and provide shelter for every one of them from before foaling to after weaning and don't forget that they'll turn into yearlings fast and may not sell right away and you'll have to keep them looking spiffy and housed safely also of course.

Hope this helps you, or at the very least confuses you LOL. Good luck and best wishes.

 

[dannigirl]

Here is my barn lay out. We have a lot of stalls with several run out pens around the barn. Since we have limited stallions, all geldings and mares can go out to play at the same time. Right now, we have 34 of these stalls filled. We have another lot for just our mares that has a large lean to for them to get under at will. We can use the round pen and area next to it to bring in a mare with a problem or even to let one or two from the stalls play for a while. Something we did--and have often been glad of--is put wire gates at all intersections of the hallways. We can get any horse to go to any stall by closing gates and heading them in the right direction. We also run the mares thru the barn from their night time lot to the pasture and back every day. That way, we can more easily catch any that may have issues or when they need hoof work or whatever. We also put the geldings and younger mares from the barn out to pasture with the mares quite frequently and our gating system makes it easy to seperate them for my husband and myself.

This is on a scale of 2' per square. The mares are on the South of the building and the tackstalls are on the East end. There are two more doors on the barn that I forgot to mark. One just north of the tack stalls on the East door and the other on the northeast corner going out to the north. There is a fence starting at the northeast corner going to the north for an outside play lot. The east end of the barn faces the house and has no fences. Our barn does not have totally closed walls. The outside walls have cracks and the top 2 to 3 foot are open. We close the North and East in the winter to keep snow out with tin. The west end is already partially closed because that is where the rain seems to come in the most.

 

[eagles ring farm]

Thank you! Yes Allure, that does help. I'm glad you shared. I've been worried that I have to much area set aside for run ins and not enough stalls. Using the aisle is a good idea Lori. How wide is your aisle?

Our aisles are 12' wide by 30' deep

the stalls on each side are 10 ' deep and the width of them varies most are 10x10

then we have 3 in the 2nd barn that are 7x10

 

[JMS Miniatures]

 

[jsites]

Thanks guys. The plans are helping...keep them coming.

Marty, Thanks for all the food for thought. You didn't confuse me. I really appreciate all the advice.

 

[madmax]

I believe in the importance of fire safety, I have seen the results of a barn fire, it can happen to the best of us.

I would not store hay in a barn housing my horses.

I prefer having stalls that not only open into the aisle, but each one having a door to an outside run in or paddock. In case of fire, a person can run around opening all outer doors to give them a chance to flee. By the way, always have stall doors open out, not into the stall.

I like giving my horses the option to go in or out as well. They will at times stay out in the rain when they have the choice to come in, but it is nice to be able to shut them in if needed.

You will have fun designing your barn, best wishes, let us know what you do!

 

[misty'smom]

We built our barn this past summer. It is not a big barn but is very functional and I just love it!! I especially love having two doors to access the stall that is a 12x12. The door to the field area is a double dutch type and the inside door is a slide door so no space is wasted. We put windows on the sides and back and the dutch doors in the front for great ventilation. The base of the flooring is crushed blue stone and then stall mats throughout. The outside area is covered by the roof which is great when the weather is bad or for doing jobs such as grooming and when the farrier comes. This style pole barn could be made longer to add more stalls. So nothing fancy but Josie and Misty love their barn and it makes their care easier with lots of storage.

 

[Carolyn R]

Jen, by shed roof do you mean a single pitch shelter without a center peak?

Went back and read the dimensions, I get it, a ten foot overhang on one side. What I have, rather than a built on extension like that, my building isn't enormous, 25x48, the last 10x25 has an open floor and half walls, this is their loafing area to get out of the weather. I have to dig up some of the Amish builders floor plans, there are some really neat ideas, like large corner stalls that have a front that runs on a slant to make the most out of barn space allowing for a huge grooming area in the aisle. The Harrisburg horse expo was last week, wish I would have known, I could have gathered tons of info on barn layouts for you. There were lots and lots of companies that did barns, great way to get ideas.