This message is from: "Rebecca Mayer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Hi list,
About barns. We started our small breeding operation with a 10 stall barn
built in a traditional VT style with a ?Dutch front ?hipped roof??.
We have a roughened cement floor wide enough for BIG tractors and trucks
to drive through as the manure pile is in the back and has to be removed
through the barn. As we are in VT we are on a hill. We have wide
opening doors front and back(in order to drive through) . As a plus,
the aisle is wide enough for horses to pass each other and to walk
sick horses inside in the winter. We HAVE the drain holes with cement
inside the stalls sloping to the drains and we DON'T like it as well as we
hoped because the material (bits of dirt and sawdust) going into the drains
clogs them. We disinfect the cement before foaling and have to periodically
dig out the drains. We have rubber mats over the cement in the stalls.
Several stalls are separated by removable tongue and groove boards dropped
into mental guides. These stalls can be doubled in size for foaling. All
stalls
are tongue and groove--lucky as a wild mare once tried very hard to take
down the wall and failed. The stall fronts are 1/2 solid and 1/2 barred with
metal feed doors for inexperienced help. The doors slide open so that they
don't open into the aisles. Each stall has separate lighting and the aisles
have
covered plugs above fjord level. All lighting is operated from a metal box
at
the front of the barn. The hip roof gave us enough hay storage for 22
horses--
right, in a 10 stall barn. We have a feed room, stairs to the hay storage,
a
hay drop in the center of the aisle, a heated tack room with hot and cold
water and with a hose connection that allows a hose to be run to reach all
stalls and the outdoor heated tub in the winter. We wash on an outside
tie over a drain which can be reached by the tack room hose. The back
of the barn connects by a swinging gate to the field run. Horses are let
out by opening the barn door, swinging the gate open to connect with the
door and opening the stalls one by one--no need to even touch a horse.
They come in the same way and know their own stalls. There is a perimeter
fence around all the property so horses can be moved from one pasture
to another without either having to be handled or getting loose. I wish
we could have had stall runin's but the hillside wouldn't allow it.
Otherwise
I wouldn't change anything other than the drains.
Becky in freezing Northern VT on a mountain where we have had snow
and too much ice to ride for a long time now.
