# Stall design details



## ObiWan (Jul 7, 2017)

I owned a horse when I was young, but our pasture & barn were very... um... rudimentary. I've recently moved my family out to an acreage and have built a new pole barn that has one wing dedicated to horses (most of it is a workshop and machine shed). I'm about to start building the stalls themselves so we can get a horse or two, and I'd like some pointers on the finer details of my design.

It'll have one 10x12' tack room and three 10x12' horse stalls (10' wide by 12' deep). Each stall has one exterior door into the corral and one interior door into a hallway. The hallway is small, and really only suitable for human foot traffic, but I want to size the interior stall door for a horse, just in case. In the photos below, the stalls are dirt, and the tack room & hallway are paved. We plan on getting 1 to 3 gentle, well-behaved horses. I expect they'll have nearly 24x7 access to the corral, except in dangerous weather.

1. When building the corral, common wisdom is to bolt the fence rails to the inside of the fence posts so that a horse can't just push his way through them. Does the same not hold true for stalls inside the barn? Most of the stall photos I see online have 4x4 vertical posts, but the 2x8 tongue & groove siding is just screwed (with wood screws) to the outside of the posts. Is this strong enough? Do I need to worry about a well-behaved horse trying to push his way through the stall wall into a narrow, interior hallway?

2. When building stall walls, the majority of the cost can go toward the metal bars that make up the top half of the walls. In order to cut costs significantly, I'm considering using panels of goat fencing from TSC instead of steel bars. Goat fencing has 4x4" openings and is made from 0.20" diameter galvanized wire. I see this used occasionally in online photos. Is this safe? Should I be concerned that a gentle horse, who already has nearly constant access to the outdoors and to its companion, might try to push through the window grating to gain access to the adjacent stall or to the hallway? I'm not housing rodeo broncs.

3. I'm planning to line the stall walls with tongue & groove 2x8 yellow pine lumber (treated on the bottom row). Looking at the photos below of the current state of my stall area, you see that the exterior wall has a bottom skirt board and two girts, positioned about 48" and 90" above the dirt. My exterior steel siding bolts directly to these. Can I just run my stall siding vertically and screw it directly to the inside surface of these girts, or should I be worried about a horse kicking the interior siding and thereby damaging the exterior steel siding? Is it worth the effort (and reduced interior space) to instead attach the stall siding to the 6x6 support posts so that there's a little buffer space between the stall wall and the exterior siding? Again, I'm not housing rodeo broncs.

4. For the 12'-long divider walls between stalls, will I be OK running 12' long tongue & groove 2x8's the entire length, or do I really need to split it in half and sink a 4x4 post in the middle of that wall? Would running a vertical support bracket across all the horizontal 2x8's at the mid-way point be necessary or sufficient to avoid sinking a 4x4 post?

That's probably enough questions for now. I need to get started on these stalls, but I don't want to regret a stupid design decision 6 months from now.


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## SilverMaple (Jun 24, 2017)

What a cool new barn! Congrats!

I would use rebar rather than goat panels for the bars if you aren't going with prefab stall fronts (which pop up affordably on Facebook horse sites/swap pages/etc. relatively frequently). They're less likely to catch a hoof if the horse should rear or get stupid in the stall, and easy to replace as needed if one gets bent. A friend has them in his barn-- he lined the top of each stall halfwall with 4x4 lumber with holes drilled in it for the rebar, then bolted another 4x4 piece with holes all the way through to the top track of the stalls, so if you need to replace the rebar, you unbolt the top 4x4 and slide it down, replace the bar, slide it back up and rebolt. I think he's replaced about three bars in 20 years.

I would also line the inside of the walls horizontally to the support posts rather than vertically to the girts up to a height of at least 8' to prevent the horse chewing it. You may also want to line the lower part of the exterior siding outdoors to prevent the horses from kicking it or catching a shoe on it. 

A 12' run of wood for a stall divider is long and will bend and warp. I would put in a support post, or invest in stand-alone stall dividers where you drop in the wood and the structure is self-supporting but could be removed to make 1 larger stall out of two if needed (handy if you have a horse on strict stall rest or a mare/foal). 

Are the exterior doors for the stalls reinforced and strong enough to hold a horse without an interior gate? Some barns put those mesh stall gates like you see at the racetrack, or a pipe panel gate as interior reinforcement as some horses will push on solid exterior doors until they come off the tracks to get outside, especially if they get cast in a stall or their friends are out and they're in. 

Love your setup! Congrats!


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

If you go to Tractor Supply pick up a catalog.
It can give some illustration ideas that might help you.
It is also a great way to "price shop" and do get on their email list as they will send you coupons that can save you $$$, hundreds {literally} several times a year.
Also if you have several locations nearby, compare prices store to store as they do vary and sometimes quite a bit.
TS also will meet competitor prices as will Rural King.

So now....
I will answer some of your questions that I know worked for us and might save you some $$ and time and aggravation.
I have a pole barn in my backyard, built by our family as a project.
I have 12' x12' box stalls. My horses average 15.2 - 16.1 hands and big bodies. I have so much room in my stalls my horses by their choice often comfortably fit 2 horses in a stall at the same time.
Your choice of stall size will work great...

So...through trial and error we have found....
Absolutely you can safely use those panels that Tractor Supply sells for goats. We happened to use the livestock panel ourself that are rectangle shaped ...my horses are unable to pester each other through them. They were cheaper than the goat and same wire gauge. You don't need the horse panels, period. Not here in this application.
So these make for great neighbors when feeding and no fighting.
We chose the livestock style so I could put my arm through to reach something if I needed to on a stall ledge like a brush. Arms fit...horse muzzles do not!
We attached ours by making a l_l channel with wood and securing the wire inside...it isn't moving or going anyplace, period. All sides are done.
We have actual 4' rounded pipe steel gates for doors. The bottoms of ours are made with horse wire so no hoof can get through or caught. Allowing better ventilation for us is mandatory in a hot & humid climate. Our doors are positioned so I can open and secure them fully back in against the wall without taking up any egress room...my opening is still 4' wide. 
Remember to add room for the hinge at the right spacing when planning._ {they are called screw hooks in Tractor Supply catalog}_
You can make it that the stall door only opens in but it can be a safety issues of getting out in a hurry for you. Beware...
If you are concerned of a escape artist having doors that swing outward you can either put in a single stall chain that spans the doorway hanging off of screw eyes or use a stall guard. The horse would then need to release all those clips or slide underneath to escape the stall if he got the door open.
Stall doors that open outward also need to swing flush to the wall or very wide aisles are needed to safely walk a horse inside the barn area.
Our stalls are made from 2" x 10" pressure treated lumber at the bottom, then we used 2" x 6" the rest of the way then topped our walls with those livestock panels.
Our solid bottom walls are 52" high from floor then livestock panel added additional 48" of stall wall height. 
I would strongly suggest all pressure treated lumber used as manure and urine are very caustic and can splash high at time of depositing by the animal..
You _will_ need a brace of wood {4x4} midway behind any wall so it not flex and snap if a hoof kicks it...that is how I would be building if my barn. At least 1 brace in place.
Consider insulating that roof if possible as they bake heat inside and can be very noisy during rain. My barn also has a metal roof and although we don't have snow, we have condensation and that means dripping in stalls, on horses backs and such :evil:...plan accordingly to reduce that issue.
Paddocks boards are strongest places inside so pushed against the post by a horse.
My stalls have the boards screwed to the outside wall but with no ability to hang their head over the wall they also can't get enough oomph to push off a wall of boards. 
If you have a kicker...good luck and return in a new thread for some strong suggestions of how to correct a kicker from destroying your barn. We used 3 1/2" long screws when we assembled our walls..they are not going anyplace easily!
That should get you started....
If I can help again please ask.
There are many here that have built and have some great ideas to share.
Read all, apply what you want and store the rest away for just in case you make additions or changes over time.
Enjoy your project.
:runninghorse2:.....
_jmo..._


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## ObiWan (Jul 7, 2017)

SilverMaple said:


> What a cool new barn! Congrats!


Thanks! It's been a fun project, and is still a long way from done after 9 months of work. If you're curious, you can read about the process on another forum:
Obi-Wan's new barn - MyTractorForum.com - The Friendliest Tractor Forum and Best Place for Tractor Information



> I would use rebar rather than goat panels for the bars if you aren't going with prefab stall fronts (which pop up affordably on Facebook horse sites/swap pages/etc. relatively frequently).


I see entire stall fronts on Craig's List now & then, but they're usually either trashed or expensive. I've never seen just the rails.

I hadn't even thought about using rebar. Doesn't it get rusty? It's about the same price per horizontal foot as the goat wire, but it's a whole lot more work due to all the drilling. I can't imagine having to paint 27x 20'-long bars before use.

I'd considered using 1/2" black plumbing pipe, which is larger in diameter, but won't corrode. It costs 3 times what rebar & goat fence do, but only a third what brand new stall bars do.

I still don't relish drilling 300 holes to hold my custom-cut bars. I guess that's why people pay $130 for a 4' section of pre-made bars.



> They're less likely to catch a hoof if the horse should rear or get stupid in the stall


That's just because the goat fence might bend when struck, making a larger opening than it normally has, right?



> A friend has them in his barn


That's a pretty slick system! So he's actually had the rebar bent, huh? By a horse? Not much chance of 0.2" goat fence holding up to those forces.



> I would also line the inside of the walls horizontally to the support posts rather than vertically to the girts up to a height of at least 8' to prevent the horse chewing it.


Is that just to prevent chewing, or do you think a kick to the 2x's would damage the exterior steel if I mounted the 2x's directly to the girts? I can go as high as I want with either method.



> You may also want to line the lower part of the exterior siding outdoors to prevent the horses from kicking it or catching a shoe on it.


Yeah, I was planning to line the lower 5' of those doors. The structure of the doors may or may not withstand a solid kick, but if I can get the doors lined, then at least the entire door should move as a unit.

I'm also going to raise the latches up from the lower support (30" high) to the upper support (60" high) to get them out of harm's way.



> A 12' run of wood for a stall divider is long and will bend and warp. I would put in a support post


That's what I was afraid of. I was hoping someone would tell me not to worry about it.



> Are the exterior doors for the stalls reinforced and strong enough to hold a horse without an interior gate?


I think they can handle constant pressure all right, but repeated, strong kicking would eventually get the better of the door hardware. I'm not sure there's anything I can do about that at this point, so I'll cross that bridge when we come to it.


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## ObiWan (Jul 7, 2017)

horselovinguy said:


> Absolutely you can safely use those panels that Tractor Supply sells for goats. We attached ours by making a l_l channel with wood and securing the wire inside...it isn't moving or going anyplace, period.


I was planning to just cut a 7/16" dado along the adjacent boards, then slip the panels into that. The panel would float in its slot, just like a cabinet door.



> Our doors are positioned so I can open and secure them fully back in against the wall without taking up any egress room...my opening is still 4' wide.


I did that with my corral gates. The hinges angle out from the gate posts at a 45-degree angle. See the photo below.



> You can make it that the stall door only opens in but it can be a safety issues of getting out in a hurry for you.


It can also make it impossible for you to get into the stall if a sick/injured/ornery horse is leaning against the door.

I think I'm pretty set on using sliding doors, so this isn't an issue for me.



> Our solid bottom walls are 52" high from floor then livestock panel added additional 48" of stall wall height.


That's about the height I was thinking for the solid portion. Thanks for the confirmation.



> I would strongly suggest all pressure treated lumber used as manure and urine are very caustic and can splash high at time of depositing by the animal..


Ug. That nearly doubles the cost of the wood. Maybe I can strike a happy medium.



> Consider insulating that roof if possible as they bake heat inside and can be very noisy during rain. My barn also has a metal roof and although we don't have snow, we have condensation and that means dripping in stalls, on horses backs and such


The ceiling above my horse area is lined with "double bubble", which is a thin, rolled insulation that looks like bubble wrap with a shiny, foil side. The Cleary rep said it would drop my indoor temps by 20 degrees on a sunny day. After comparing the temps in the horse wing with those in another part of the barn, I can't argue with him. I wish I'd put it on the south face of the rest of the roof, too. The temp in my barn attic was 125F last weekend.

My roof has a 2:12 pitch, so condensation should run to the wall before it drips on anyone.



> Paddocks boards are strongest places inside so pushed against the post by a horse.
> My stalls have the boards screwed to the outside wall but with no ability to hang their head over the wall they also can't get enough oomph to push off a wall of boards.
> If you have a kicker...good luck


I hadn't thought about the horse not being able to lean hard against the stall wall. Good point. Kicking could still remove some boards, but I'm hoping to avoid that by carefully shopping for these horses.

Thanks for the advice!


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## SilverMaple (Jun 24, 2017)

Yes, he's had the rebar bent. Not often, but once when horses panicked due to neighbors shooting off fireworks, once when boarding a stallion that tried to go over the stall, and once that he couldn't figure out. Calm old mare bent a couple of non-adjacent bars during the night in random places. She'd never done it before and never did it again. Not a mark on her, not sick, not injured, never did figure that one out. He doesn't paint them. They do rust, but not so they look bad in a barn with rust-colored piping around the stall doors and such. I haven't measured, but his are about 4" apart.

I'd be anchoring that goat fence solidly if you use it, not just fit it into a dado slot. If a horse would get caught in it (catch a shoe or even a jaw on it) they can pull it loose if it's not secured, and then rather than hopefully bending the wire and freeing themselves, they're attached to the panel which they've pulled off the wall. It's not pretty, and it's not likely, but it has happened.


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

Silver...
I went back out and looked at our panel stall top dividers...
We had to cut ours as they came 16' long and my stalls walls are 12' long.
We did not l_l them....we actually drilled a hole for each wire on the sides, slipped them in {very tight} then the 4 sides we used small rectangles of metal drilled with a hole each end and screwed the panel into place.
I have literally hung on the thing the day the ladder fell I was standing on...it held my weight not budging. {I was 12' in the air, not an easy drop from the rafters..so dropped and grabbed the stall wall }
My barn is a pole barn that we did use l_l and screws to put up the lightly tinted plastic weather-proofing panels so no rain invades the barn. 
The metal livestock panels though we drilled and then used those metal plates to hold them tight in place as reassurance.
I do not see a horse under normal circumstance getting their hoof caught in one 4' in the air and not so easy to get a mouth firmly open and able to really grab them either...or at least I will say my horses have not at this point succeeded at that ....
I think you can build to over-kill and nothing is horse proof and damage-proof under their immense strength when frightened or truly, truly angry at something..

As for your lumber....
P/T definitely 2' high off the floor then if using regular wood I would be "painting" it with some kind of preservative {Thompson's Water Seal comes to mind} you know and trust. 
This though may need doing periodically to give longevity.
Remember too that termites are everyplace in this country...p/t wood repels them better so watch for that issue too.
If you are concerned with wood chewing, you can buy _steel_ angle iron in Tractor Supply and put it on your edges. The "good" stuff no horse is going to do any damage to. I am *not* referring to corner bead used with plaster and sheetrock. Steel angle iron...drive a car over it doesn't move!
For the outer walls think about plywood stood on end so 8' in the air then put your interior wood to the height you want. It would double your wall thickness and make penetrating with a hoof so much harder preserving your exterior structure walls in case of a incident.
I honestly will say though you need to get off that exterior wall...make a air space and run 2x4 and a 4x4 post to add support. Use the building structure as anchor points but add more strengthening parts to it. 
I can't imagine building this directly flush on the exterior wall and it not rotting out that wall in a few short years. Horses make condensation, so does sun and night air...your building truly needs to still be able to breathe.
You also really don't want to put to the test how strong a horses direct hard kick is to showing on your buildings exterior.. :x

_I love sliding doors..._
Wish I could have them in my barn but dirt floors and open as mine is was not a good match.
Keep the upper track well lubricated, clean and if you use sliders then put a stall chain across the stall so you could have the door open when working in it and a occupant not leave on a jaunty walk un-escorted.
The bottom of those slider door needs that roller ball thing so the door bottom is held in place...don't forget it or it can let "escapees" out.

For insulation on the wall....
They do make a spray on that you could have applied or use the hard panels of insulation.
We did our garage door that was just sheet metal, and a great improvement of heat kept out.
Made the door heavy to lift though so not sure how that works on a wall...
I've seen rolled thin style of insulation in Lowe's by me..kind of like what you described...maybe that would help you.:shrug:

Will now go search for that journal...and do some pictures here too as you get more done...:wink:
Always a work in progress on any farm, especially with horses, _something needs done._
:runninghorse2:....
_jmo..._


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## ObiWan (Jul 7, 2017)

So here's another question I thought of over the weekend. My stalls face south & west. When it's in full sun, the metal wall skin gets too hot to touch. Even the parts of the wall that I've covered inside with OSB are warm to the touch. For the outer walls of my horse stalls, should I be putting insulation between the outer steel and the inner 2x8 stall walls? That would certainly keep the stalls a little cooler during July when it's 100F, but it would also block out all that free solar heat during January, when temps routinely get below zero. Or maybe the horse's own body heat will be sufficient warmth in January as long as they're in an enclosed space with no outside wind.

If I do insulate, I'm thinking either foil-faced 1.5" styrofoam or some R13 fiberglass batts--whichever's cheaper. Perhaps I could even just staple Double Bubble to the existing girts, just like they did for the ceiling. I haven't priced that yet, though.

Opinions?


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## horselovinguy (Oct 1, 2013)

I don't think it would hurt to insulate any of the walls, some of the walls or all the walls.
It would make the barn quieter, cooler in summer, possibly warmer in winter.
I would not be so concerned about warmer in winter for the horses. A wind break, drafty air break and weather protection will allow the horses to use their natural ability to stay warm as you are taking care of the staying dry part.
Consider what you are doing for water access and maybe incorporate insulation to keep cooler in summer and from freezing in winter.
For the summer I can only tell you my horses come home and under the barn, many times in their stalls during the hottest hours. Just being out of the blistering sun must give them relief.
My stalls are open topped facing north. Doesn't rain from the north ever and it often brings a cooler feeling breeze through the barn..
I wish I had insulated my metal roof...can tell you it is deafening noisy in hard rain. With my rafters 12' high I don't feel the horrid heat built up but can only imagine. :eek_color:
:runninghorse2:...


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## Smilie (Oct 4, 2010)

Goat wire-sorry, never heard of that used for horse stalls.
I prefer stalls that are built into a barn, with regular commercial stall fronts
I don't use my stalls as run ins, but have outside horse shelters for that
Thus stalls that have worked really well for me, are built in our barn, which has doors on both ends that can be opened, to let good air flow in. They are built up above barn isle level, with crushed gravel and clay, over which are rubber matts
Walls lined with heavy wood planking
The stall fronts are something like this
Box Stalls | Hi-Hog
They are anchored to heavy beams, set in holes and cemented in.
Nothing has ever been bent, needed to be replaced, and I have had broom mares and foals in them, stallions, weaned foals in them, and never had an injury


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