Trailer Questions, again

[mydaddysjag]

So, the tax return this year was good enough that hubby finally encouraged me to get a mini trailer! Of course, when your looking, you cant find a used mini trailer. We decided to order our trailer custom, and had a few questions.

We want the trailer small, I currently only have one horse, we're planning to add another in the near future, so we might be hauling two horses. I currently have a 34" horse, and I like to stay under 36". No need for a big super fancy trailer here, just something safe and comfortable for the horses. The plus side will be easier time finding parking spots and maneuvering the trailer around, less trailer to maintain, and it being easier on our tow vehicle.

Trailer is going to be 5' high, and i'm leaning on 8' long (so I can fit my cart on the optional roof rack we want to add, but we don't want to go bigger) We were planning to have our stalls 24" wide, which from all the threads Ive been reading on LB seems to be plenty wide enough.

What Im not finding a lot of on information is how long your stalls are from head to tail? We're trying to figure out how to do our inside layout, and if 24" wide 4' long stalls would be big enough. If it would the trailer can be set up to hold an additional 2 horses if ever needed. If its not, no big deal, but I thought it might increase resale value in the future if it was able to hold more horses. I dont want to upside the entire trailer to hold more since we actually only have one, but if I can use my space wiser to hold more, that would be nice.

If you have a rack on top, how tall are the sides on your rack. How to you keep your cart up there, and how hard is it to get the cart up there on a 5' trailer? Any pictures? One of the options we have is to have a aluminum tread plate roof if we would get the roof rack. I assume that would be a good idea to keep the paint from being scratched?

Is there anything you cant live without on your trailer, or wish you would have added?

I dont want a taller or full size trailer at this time, we just dont need it, and have room for a 8' trailer, anything bigger we wont have good parking for it.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

Don't forget to add up to 2-4' of tongue in your parking calculations!

 

[Coventry Lane Farm]

If you are custom ordering your trailer, please PM us for on the fabricator, there has been some companies out there that are bad news and 2 different friends of ours here locally have been dealt with bad ones custom making their trailers and its a very long story, I just want you to be aware of them and not have your money taken and no trailer or a trailer with no title or a title that is not valid in the state of Pa.

 

[~Lisa~]

Since you are making it custom I would seriously re think the 5 ft high. I really think it is important to be able to stand up and move around in there in case of an emergency. Be it one on the road or needing to transport an ill horse or anything but that is just my suggestion.

 

[RhineStone]

I agree with Lisa, that I would go at least 6' high so that you can stand up in it. Even if just because it is raining at a show and you want to get out of it. And if you have stuff to move around, it will be very hard when you or someone that comes over to help you are hunched over.

My mom's "box" mini trailer is 12' long and that is a nice size. It has a dual axle so if you have a tire blow out, you don't lose the whole trailer with the precious cargo. The cart(s) are inside so that when (not if) it rains, you don't have to worry about the carts, and the older you get, the more that hauling a cart on a roof rack isn't so appealing (I'm only near 40, and I don't want to work that hard!

) Also, if you are concerned about scratching the trailer paint, I assume you would be concerned about scratching the cart paint, so hauling inside would be my suggestion.

You could probably get 2 minis and a cart in an 8' trailer if you put the shafts over the horses. (We have a 24' gooseneck. We have no problems fitting our minis and their stuff in. When we take the big horses, then we run out of space!

)

As far as something I can't live without is ventilation. I wish we had more in our trailer. I would like more air movement without stuff blowing around. I'm not so keen on slat sided trailers because sometimes we do have to haul in cool weather and I want to control the temp more, but I wish our windows were bigger. We do have fans for the horses that run off the truck battery. Lights that are "live" are nice, too. I know of trailers where the lights only work if the truck lights are on. We also have an AC/DC box in our trailer that we can hook up to an electrical box and have power in the trailer even if we aren't connected to the truck.

We also like our rubber mats and walls. They protect the horses well, and clean up easily.

 

[Sandee]

Just to give you an idea here are the mesurements of our Hawk BP (bumper pull) trailer. It's 6' tall inside (sets about another 7" off the ground); about 11' 10" nose to back (front is curved not square) inside so that's not counting the tongue. The stalls are crosswise of the trailer and I think it's only about 48" to 54" wide. It is made to hold 2 horses facing front and 3 more facing sideways. I always use the front two stalls for my equipment including a cart (dividers come out). However the cart has to sit at an angle because of the 6' ceiling. This doesn't make getting inside to anything while on the road easy!

Have you given much thought to how you'd get your cart on top of the trailer? I thought it was a good idea until I put a rack on made the rails to run it up and a ladder to help me get on top. Then I realized that I (or someone) would have to stand up there and help pull the cart up, get it in the place, tie it down and somehow manage to then climb down. My daughter has some physical handicaps and I'm 65.....just didn't work out. There are solutions to getting the cart up there but my husband is NOT mechanically inclined so I'm stuck.

Oh, yeah, dual axles....wouldn't be without them.

 

[mydaddysjag]

We'll think about the height, but honestly, I'm not out showing every weekend, we do a few a year. The 1' difference between the 5' and 6' trailers is quite a bit more expensive, and honesty probably over kill for us. I mostly want a trailer in case of emergency (we're moving our horse home this year, need transportation in case he would need rushed into the vet clinic for an emergency instead of the vet coming out to us). I normally only show at shows who offer stalls, I haven't showed from a trailer since I was running barrel horses years ago.

We really don't want to go longer on the trailer. If It's 8' plus the tongue, it will fit in our driveway, otherwise it would have to be parked out in the field, and we prefer to keep it in the driveway. It the winter our field gets muddy, and we'd rather have the trailer out front where it can be quickly hitched to leave in case of an emergency. We keep the driveway plowed to the road, but not the field lol.

The trailer we are looking at will have a lot of ventilation. It will have sliding windows on all 4 sides that are nearly the length of the trailer. That way they can be open for ventilation, but closed if need be, and my supplies can be stored inside and locked in a water tight area.

We would defiantly be getting rubber mats.

 

[Sandee]

More food for thought. My trailer has top vents that open both to the front or to the back. They come in handy to get the "hot" air out or if you don't want windows open on a really cool day.

We park our trailer next to the drive but on a cement slab. If it's in the drive, it gets in the way of the snow removal.

 

[mydaddysjag]

I'll have to see about getting some pop up vents, Ive had them on past big horse trailers, and did like them.

Our driveway is an odd setup, we have our driveway that leads to our garage which is where we park, then next to the driveway is our "extra" driveway, its more like a parking lot, it is a gravel pull off to the side of our driveway, fits 4 cars side by side, and is 14' deep. It and our regular driveway are right off of the road. Its kind of hard to explain, but is like a pull in parking lot off of the road, that is next to our driveway.

 

[AnnaC]

My most important must have is twin axles - a much steadier ride for the horses plus, as has been mentioned, less chance of an accident in the event of a blow out!

Anna