Advice For building a horse barn?

Anything helpfull. Drain ideas, lighting, stalls, flooring, brands, anything!Advice For building a horse barn?
Lots of ideas for you.





Stall size, minimum 12'x12', I really prefer 12x16or20.


If using stall mats, first creat drainage UNDER them. Dig down 2-3', use a crushed stone base, about 1'. On top of that a good gravel (sand %26amp; stone mix), then a permeable dirt. You want to pack this really well before putting your mats in. Otherwise your mats will shift and buckle.





Lots and lots of air flow. Are you building a BARN or a SHELTER? If a barn, use cupulos, have latchable windows, anything to help air out barn. Also, natural lighting is great, saves on electric bills. Think the top 3' of your walls with clear panels instead of sheet metal. Sunlights as often as you can.





If you are going to have an aisle way, you want at least 10' wide for clearance of horses and vehicles. Be sure one of you doors is wide enough to drive a pickup or tractor through.





The bottom half of all of your stalls should be solid so that a horse can not get a leg caught between boards.





Have several power outlets around your barn so that you can use fans, clippers, lights, radios etc. without running extension coords.





Be sure to plan where you want water access. If you are doing auto waterers where are you running your line? I like to have several light switches so that I don't have to light up the WHOLE barn all the time. Saves on electric bill.





Sliding doors on your stalls if you can afford to buy them. A whole stall kit usually runs about $700-$1000 each stall. But there are ways to build your own and just buy the sliding door. Swinging doors block the hall way and horses can get caught on them.





Think about placement of your feed room and hay storage. You want it easily accessible from your pickup AND to your horses. You don't want to have to lug it on either end.





Placement of your tackroom is important. You want it near wherever you are tieing your horses for saddling. You don't want to walk for several trips between the two carrying saddles and brushes.Advice For building a horse barn?
bring in a contractor :)





Always have good air flow, good flyspray system, good drainage, and good lighting.





If your going to put stall matts wall to wall, put a small slope to the ground for drainage. Be sure to have open air space and fans in place if needed.





Lighting should run down the beeze way - not into the stalls





and stalls should be hight enough that if a horse rears in the stall it won't hit its head.