# Building a roundpen...



## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

As some of you have noticed, i have a couple young horses in training. And i have a loony mare that needs refreshed. I was going to buy a trail horse, but i'm wondering now if, at least for now... I should use that money to build a roundpen?

We have a tight budget at the moment due to me losing my job. I was thinking if i could do something for $300 or under, I could still get a trail horse when i come across one in the near future that is what i'm looking for (i've had no luck so far).

The area i work in now is just a small portion of field that is not fenced in. I'm kind of "out of space" so to speak, but i might be able to talk my guy into stealing some of our "yard" space... for a roundpen/arena if it LOOKS NICE! It has to look nice.

I live in Ohio so it's very wet here. I have noticed driving by multiple horse owner properties, these roundpens made out of wood posts and what looked to me like (haha) the landscaping plastic 4inch-ish (Look at me and my awesome explanation skills) stuff you put around flower beds? So i googled and came across this, which i think might be it.

Batten Tape

I also came across somebody who said they built one using these materials for under $150! I'm sure i can get some rough cut lumber for posts relatively cheap, one of the properties on my street is an Amish man who does the lumber thing. This will be ideal if it's that cheap because i will need to do some major work as far as footing goes. Probably till, haul in sand, etc. I don't even know. It's Ohio? Any advice?

Anybody have experience building out of this material? It seems cheap, sturdy. 

Now, how tall? How many rows/spaced how far apart? There is SO much to think about. I'll leave you with this and i'm gonna go take pics of my property so maybe you can point out something i'm not seeing as far as where i can put this thing....

Thanks!


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## smrobs (Jul 30, 2008)

That seems like a good item for fencing a paddock but it isn't something that I would use in a roundpen. IMHO, a roundpen (especially where there will be young/green/problem horses worked) needs to be really sturdy. I personally prefer the solid pipe panels at least 6' tall. However, most pipe panels are not cheap. A pen of wood planks would be better and a lot of people get along with them but I, personally, don't like wood pens either. It may be in your best interest to find something that would work for you and then work your budget to fit it in, even if it takes a couple of months of saving. IMHO, it would be better to buy something high quality from the get go rather than spend what you have budgeted now on something that you find out later isn't quite as good as you originally thought.


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

I thought so too when it comes to safety/sturdiness. (one of the ones i drove past, was loose... and i thought "How in the world...") but i think that may have been builder error.

Then i read this (posted on another forum, can't link it and it even has PICTURES and it looks super nice, almost like painted wood from a distance).



> We are thrilled with it. It's safe - if a horse hits it, they just kind of bounce off of it, it has held up to 100 mph winds (we had an F3 tornado touch down just 3 miles away this weekend) and it still looks great. Our posts are 10 feet apart and the strapping doesn't even flap, not even a little, in the wind. It was EASY to install! It took more time to paint the landscape timbers than it did to install the strapping!


I can't find anything but that when i google though, maybe this is a best kept secret at this point? The pictures i saw looked amazing. Better than bright red corral gates, IMO!

Heres what i'm thinking, illustrated with a pic. My only option is probably right here:








And as you can see my lawn mower decided to die before i even got one strip cut. Anyway... grrr... 

Behind me is the house/garage. Between that and the barn is our huge fenced in yard for the dogs, which between that and the barn theres only a smallish walkway. Then we have our chicken coop/run, a pond, and a good sized side yard. However, it's not level AT ALL and i have a clothes line and other various things there. The rest (all 9 acres) is fenced in. The side yard would look BETTER because it would be set back, but it would then be really far from the barn.

I think i really like this idea, I hope somebody has tried it and can pipe up!


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## ShutUpJoe (Nov 10, 2009)

BO just got an actual round pen on craigslist for $350. She put an ad on there and someone e-mailed her. It needs painted but it's an actual panel roundpen.


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

I just found a roundpen online made out of TIRES. I have a whole pile of tires, hundreds probably, that were here when we moved in...

It won't look nice, but maybe i could find somewhere to put it in the pasture? I'm gonna try to find out more about this. They just kinda piled the tires up in a circle and drilled holes in them to let them drain so misquito's couldn't nest. How cool is that? I've been trying to figure out something to do with all these tires!


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## Plains Drifter (Aug 4, 2009)

Squeak said:


> I just found a roundpen online made out of TIRES. I have a whole pile of tires, hundreds probably, that were here when we moved in...


Do you have a picture or link of this?


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

Linky


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## Plains Drifter (Aug 4, 2009)

Thank you! Definately not what I had pictured.


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

LOL It's not very nice looking, i know. I'm wondering, will have to ask the male of the house... if it would be possible to build it out behind a big hill we have that was the dirt from our pond. We call it "the dirt pile" - the people just left it that way. You wouldn't be able to see it them, and it probably wouldn't cost much to plant bushes around it in the future.

Definitely wouldn't be able to put THAT where i had in mind to begin with


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## ShutUpJoe (Nov 10, 2009)

That tire round pen is AWESOME.....hmmmm


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

I know. We're gonna build it Sunday  I'll take pics!


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## Indyhorse (Dec 3, 2009)

I LOVE the idea of the tire round pen! That's brilliant! I'm big into freecycling anyways, and it seems, if the walls were sturdy enough, it would also be great protection for them. 

I'm putting up a large roundpen/half sized arena right now,(40x70) wood fence, but the footing prep is the big headache, like yours it's just in an area of lawn right now. 

If you DON'T go for the tire walls, maybe you could have someone shred the tires for additional footing? I've heard it makes great arena footing!


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

We are going to reinforce the bottom layer of tires by filling them with dirt, and we have a lot (probably the majority) that still have rims on them that should make it really sturdy. We're gonna use T-posts to reinforce it a little bit as well.

I'm excited, it won't be pretty but it's eco-friendly, and the tires will be USED for something! We didn't have the thousands of dollars it would cost to have them disposed of, so this is awesome!


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

I'm sooo sad!!! My hunni has to work, so no roundpen for me this weekend  I highly doubt i can get much accomplished myself. But hey, it's overtime.

Just wanted to update with my terrible let down lol


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## RedTree (Jan 20, 2010)

just cuious how do you get the horse inside the round pen??
lol the pics dont show what they use for a gate what would you be using?


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

We are going to leave an open space, and either buy/build a gate. We have enough materials laying around that we shouldn't have to buy one. You would just have to put a couple posts in the ground to mount a gate to


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## RedTree (Jan 20, 2010)

that is awesome 
I might see if I can get my friends dad to build one lol.
It will probably end up with me and my friend building it though.
once your done I would love to know around how many tires you used


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

I'll certainly let you know. We haven't been able to do it yet due to schedules and weather - it's been POURING rain and cold. I'm getting impatient!!


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## RedTree (Jan 20, 2010)

awww  maybe make plans on who your going to lunge first lol and how great it will be once you have your marvelous roundpen


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## Hunter65 (Aug 19, 2009)

I bought a wood round pen on craigslist for $200. We had to dismantle it and are rebuilding it but hubby figures its about $900 - $1000 in wood. Unfortunately we are putting it up at our property and probably won't be finished this year (unless we can get someone to pound the posts in) so I won't have a finished picture.


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## Nutty Saddler (May 26, 2009)

be very careful building a round pen out of tires - The pen in the pictures has lots of gaps between some of the tires that a horse could get a leg trapped in. Also I have had several horses that would attempt to jump out of any round pen that they could get their heads over - so it would need to be a lot higher.

Sorry to be negative but I think that looks like a train wreck waiting to happen - and would possibly end up with a very injured horse.


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## ptvintage (Feb 12, 2010)

I remember reading a book a long time ago, "The Affordable Horse" I think it was, that tires are the cheapest and one of the safest fences you can make for your horse. They just aren't the prettiest. 

Definitely update as you build this, I'm very interested in seeing the progress of it!


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## Super Nova (Apr 27, 2010)

Here is a picture of my roundpen........it was made from recycled wood and it has concrete buttresses on the out side to hold the walls in place. Wood itself cost a $1000.00 and the concrete for the buttresses there are 22 would be another $700.00....and we did all the work ourselves










Super Nova


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

I also read about them in a book now that i'm building it. Gave me an excuse to pick up the horse books i haven't touched in 5 years.

It is supposed to be very safe. I see the point about the holes, we're probably going to do ours closer together. A lot of them still have rims on them. With the weather, so far we've just started moving them from the back of the property to the location, haven't started building.

It's gonna be behind a hill, so nobody will see it unless they are in the pasture!

Honestly, my biggest concerns so far were bugs. Mosquito's, which i read you just make sure to drill lots of holes for water drainage. But my concern i don't have a solution for - BEES!


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## Nutty Saddler (May 26, 2009)

We have a lot of bee hives nearby, what we have to do is leave some water out for them in a place that causes us no problems - once the bees find the water you have left out they will always go there - just keep it fresh and make sure that it never runs out, otherwise they swarm near the horses water troughs.


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## LoveStory10 (Oct 31, 2009)

My friend has a tire round pen. Its *alot* bigger now than it was when this pic was taken. It works really well


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

That is nice! Mines gonna be *much* higher for the yougin's to do roundpen exercises in while free lunging.

I really don't have any pics but ones from when we first laid out the first layer. We used Semi tires WITH rims on them. I can't even budge these things, and it took two guys to set them all up. I can tell you one thing, if you made the whole entire thing out of these semi tires, it wouldn't go anywhere!

However, we used 21 Semi tires and only have on left on the property now. WOOT!!

We calculated and we're gonna need 200+ tires, and sadly, we will have plenty with a few to spare.

At one riding school i used to ride at, they had some jumps set up in the cross country field made of tires. I'll probably set a few jumps up with what we have leftover, as i plan to start jumping my mare again this summer!

Here's the only pic i have:









We have to do quite a bit of work on the footing. Some shrubs and little trees have to come out.

We have limited time, and drilling the holes is the worst part! It kills the cordless drill in seconds, so the tires have to be hauled to the barn, drilled, and hauled to the location. We do an hour or two of work every morning before he goes to work. Slowly but surely we're getting there lol


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## AlmostThere (Oct 31, 2009)

Yay, it's shaping up, even with just the first layer . That is so great your hunni is willing to put in all that extra effort every morning before running off to a full day of work. He deserves lots of extra appreciation for that.


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## paintsrule (Aug 20, 2009)

Where'd you get the tires?


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## Super Nova (Apr 27, 2010)

You might want to consider stacking the tires like bricks and then filling them with sand or gravel.........it would make them more stable.

Super Nova


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## AlmostThere (Oct 31, 2009)

paintsrule said:


> Where'd you get the tires?


She said the previous owners left them behind on the property.


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## paintsrule (Aug 20, 2009)

AlmostThere said:


> She said the previous owners left them behind on the property.


Oh sorry, guess I missed that.

How lucky is that though!


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## Squeak (Apr 8, 2010)

Yup, every single tire was here! We actually weren't aware there were quite as many as there were... or we would have probably passed on buying. Never knew tired cleanup was so time consuming/expensive.

We had just neatly stacked them all wayyyy back in the woods and planned to leave them :shock: But now... they're being put to good use.

I appreciate what the guy does... if only i could get him to change a lightbulb without asking 900 times :wink:


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