Suggestions for Building Stalls

My family and I are planning to build some stalls in our old "cow barn". The floor is cement of course... But we were wondering, I am used to seeing wood underneath the stall matts..... but I know from working at these barns that are set up like this that the wood basically just gets rotten until you replace it and the cycle begins again.

So what else can we put under the stall matts, or is the stall matts good enough? and what i am thinking is more towards the horses that may have to stay in the stall all the time for a bit. I want to make sure I can do that without it hurting them. We also want to be able to disinfect them well.

Also, My dad wants to build them himself..... of course to save costs. Does anyone know of some good websites with ideas for stall fronts and the actual stalls? I want good ones lol

You know, I can see a lot of those stall fronts, but I'll be danged if I can remember the name of any of them.. Maybe just Google it. As far as the floors being cement, as far as keeping them clean, disinfectant-wise, shouldn't be a problem, just clorox the crap out of them and hose 'em down.

Truthfully, I've been threatening to concrete my stalls in my new barn, but Rick won't let me do it. Course I'd have a drain, for easy clean-up, but pulling those mats, good Lord, have mercy. I know mats have come a long way since I used to pull them out of stalls, but it'd take two of us stout women to pull those things out, and we'd be cursing the whole danged time. Lordy, those things were heavy!

If you're going to have cement, though, you'd better pad 'em big time... figure lots more in money on shavings.

I have had my eye on Rockin J stalls. They are nice, but pricey. Maybe your dad can duplicate something like they make.

Also, CMI makes some pretty neat stalls of all sorts of types. Check them out too. I believe they both have websites.

My husband made the stalls on the other side of our barn. I will try and get out later today and snap off a few shots of them. They were WAY cheaper then buying them and that is why we made them. The are nice big stalls..

As far as the cement floors go I have seen horses stalled in them on just mats.. I think that would be very hard on feet and legs.. You could put wood under them. Get the treated boards (these would take long time to rot if ever). I would get about 1.5 to 2". And, plan to maybe have to replace them in a few years. We use treated rail road ties and sink them in the ground for corner post on our patures and they have been there for years and never rotted. We also use treated wood for anything that will touching the ground (like the bottom board in out stalls) and they get they have never rotted either..

Or, just bed them really heavy. Some of the horse show facilities I have been to have stalls on cement. We bed them 4 to 6" (no mats) and they do fine on those.. I do not know what kind of bedding you have to choose from? But nice and deep over mats would likely do it. Just remember to get all the pee and poo out every day and fill in..

I would make the stalls at least 12 x 12 and 12 x 14 is even better.. The bigger they are the more they can move around in them. When we added on to the other side of our arena we made those 12 x 16 for mare and foal. Nice and big and they can stay in those all the way to weaning and there is room for a creep if you need one for the foal. We have 10 12 x 12 for stalls on the otherside that we can take out the divider wall and make 12 x 24 for foaling.. Tommy is so big he is in a 12 x 24 for more space. I wish we had done nice big runs off the stall.

Lots to think about and get every idea you can so it turns out just the way you want it.. I will try to snap off a few shots and send them to you. If nothing else it will give your dad some ideas and get his planning going..

Bluejay, that'd be great to shoot some shots. I have in my mind what I want for ours, too. Do you have sliding stall doors? A friend of mine had those, and I swear, when they get tough to open and close is kind of hard on us old folks... but figure we gotta do that, rather than a regular gate. What kind have you got?

And yesterday, when we were over at my sister's, all the garage doors looked like they'd been handmade out of cedar - most gorgeous thing on the houses! HA! Rick said he'd like to have that as far as the doors on the new barn.

I will snap off a few shots tomorrow.. We do have sliding doors.. And, these move better then the expensive Big Valley fronts we have on the other side..

You know, what we did on our stall fronts, is we have rough cut oak. Now those boards may pop off, but they're not going to break. But Rick screwed them in. About oh, five feet up, he made a deal with this silver tube stuff, that I think is used to put electric stuff in, for the bars, and they are great! Still look good, none are bent, etc. even after all this time, and stallions being in them. The only thing you've got to watch about the rough cut oak is, on one side of the board, the inside stall part, we had them sort of sand it a bit, because of tails getting stuck on 'em and pulling out hairs.

The stalls we want to build have to be sized as a foaling pen. My only pen I have for foaling likes to flood once every year, and has no base other than dirt.... We bed it really deep, but it does get wet.

I am not sure what kind of measurements we can get in, but I told my dad I wanted as many stalls as he could make .... and he'll do it for me since I help him with his animals a lot..... Having small wrists is a curse! I swear!

I'll probably make 4-5 foaling sized stalls, and 2 or so regular ones for colts and such.... If need be, we can build something to make a foaling pen into two pens to hold colts..

I'd really like to get a few more mares, and would like to show more.... so these are definetly a "need"

These stalls are 12 x 16. 12 x 14 would be just fine too. Toung and groove. Matted.. The foal needs to be able to see out of these.. We have three different styles to get that done. You can do it once..

Bluejay, on the front of the stall, how is that attached. I'm assuming the door is in that U-angle iron stuff, right?

I think they're just flat jam-up! Lordy, ya'll ought to see the rest of her "barn"... good Lord! Heck, I'm moving in with the horses if I go visit her in Oregon! HA!

They do have angle iron on them. Then Lonnie drilled each of the rails. The first one we build the foal could not see out of. The one with the board on the upper side of the door was not the no easy getting it staigh.. They do slide open eith ease though. Lonnie builds everything to last for ever. Those fronts are like 1 x 6 and very heavy.. No kicking through them.

These doors actualy slide better then the expensive big valley on the on the side..

I think the cost was around $200.00 each to build them. Plus time of course..

I was refilling all of my stalls with sand the last two days and I
thought of your question and wanted to add this..... make sure your
alley way and stall doors are wide enough to accomodate a small front
loader tractor. Without the help of the tractor I would of had to hand
trucked the old sand out and the new sand in!!!

Cindy, very good point there, tractor and truck! WHEW!

I told Rick I wanted an alleyway big enough, where if you tied two horses, one on either side, they couldn't touch butts... Rick, was like, well, GAWD, why don't we just build it 100 feet wide... okay, that'll work. HA!

Some of these T-bred barns I've been to are flat just awesome. They'll literally have an arena the whole length and width of the barn, with all the stalls and grooming areas/wash racks, etc. in the middle. And at the one end, have like a smaller riding size to exercise one.... the money spent on those things are just unreal!

I'm also going to have smoke detectors in mine... don't know how that's going to work, but got to do something on that deal...

Does anybody have those fly spray thingies in their barn? Had a friend that had that, and seemed like every gosh danged time I was in a stall with a horse, that danged thing would spray... course come to think of it, I didn't have any flies swarming around me either... but it'd get in my hair, and that's all I could smell.

Also, fans... I've seen some real good cutting edge fans that will last longer than your average $15 fans from Dollar Store, that'll really put some air out. Anybody have any experience with some of those fans?

Also, thought of some more questions... Automatic waterers. The only down side to those is I can't gauge how much water they're drinking - Rick wants them, but I don't.

On your wash racks and grooming areas, are they in the same deal, and do you have a set of simple stocks there that are concreted in? Also, I'm assuming you have a drain in there, and it has a trap... anybody use those and does it work okay for making sure it doesn't get stopped up.

Somebody told me, on the hole that it goes out, make sure you've got PVC that is huge in diameter, so it wouldn't get stuck.

And what is the deal with these gosh-darned water heaters... my expensive one at the barn only lasted 2 years????

I have auto waters and LOVE them.. You can tell if a horse is not drinking other ways...

Our wash area is outside the front of the barn. We have a deep sink in the bathroom and there is a knob on it just like the shower in your house to take the water to the outside hose.. I would rather have a nice inside area with heat lamps. We also have hot water.. We have cross ties in the isle way.. The isle is 11 ft.. I do the grooming in the stall though..

I have the cheap fans that I attach to the stall fronts.. We do not get too hot here though.. I have used them a few times.. We also did cement in our isle way.. Use asfault it is much less stress on your legs when you got to run up and down cleaning..

You know, I know there's some type of stuff that's actually old tore up tires, where it's kind of rubbery... GAWD, that didn't make any sense.

I know one thing, I hated sweeping concrete, those big ole brooms put stress on my back. Can't decide whether ot just leave it dirt, and have mats in certain areas, and just take a rake... not so cumbersome.

Had a friend that her barn was an old rabbit barn, real high, and on half of it, was like 14 12x14 stalls that she built, and then the feed room, and on the other side of the feed room, were two sets of stocks to groom and bathe 2 horses at a time... the other end of it was like a huge oval round pen.

Bluejay, during the summer, I run two fans in each stall.