5 Easy Ways to Improve Your Barn

Does your barn need sprucing up? Sometimes just a few little changes can make a big difference to your productivity (to say nothing of your mood). If you’re a little over your barn’s design, need to organize some chaos, or just plain want a change, we have five easy fixes to make your barn a better place.

1. Install removable feed buckets, for a cleaner barn with better pest control. Even if you don’t feed sweet feed, the molasses in commercial grain mix can create a sticky mess in your horse’s feed bucket, as […]

5 Tips For Fall Pasture Care

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It’s hard to believe it when August is in full swing, but fall is just around the corner. Even though the weather feels like it might never cool off, the day will come when you’ll be looking at your pasture and daydreaming about summer grass again. So what do you need to do to make sure next year’s pasture is lush and green? The work starts soon, and we have five tips to keep your pasture looking bountiful.

1. Figure out what’s in your soil. You’ve been reading this advice for years, but […]

How to Use Recycled Materials to Cut Down on Equestrian Arena Costs

If your budget is the only reason you keep putting off your plans to build your own equestrian arena, here is some good news for you. While you can definitely save money by doing much of the actual construction yourself, you can also possibly cut down on costs by using recycled construction materials wherever possible. For example, choosing crushed glass instead of silica sand can save you a lot of money when it comes to putting together your sand surface. Additionally, recycled materials are eco-friendly and will help you bring down the carbon footprint of building your own equestrian […]

Stabling Draft Horses

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Stabling bigger horses? As a continuation from my article on how big should a horse stall be, https://equinefacilitydesign.com/facility-planning-design/big-horse-stall.htm, most of us are accustomed to average barns for average horses: twelve foot by twelve foot stalls, with doors about four feet wide. (In fact, you might not have ever considered the width of your stall door — they seem pretty uniform, right?)

But as draft and draft crosses become more popular as riding and recreational horses, it’s time to consider whether the average stall is the right size for our larger mounts […]

Landscaping for your Stable

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Ready to add some spring colors to your stable? While no one wants to add work to a busy barn day, there’s no doubt that a few flowers can add to the appeal of your farm. Let’s look at a few easy ways to landscape around the barn, using horse-friendly and low-labor plants.

Hardy plants: Let’s face it, most of us will plant flowers with very good intentions and eventually forget to water them. Horse-people are busy people; sometimes anything without four legs falls through the cracks. Look for flowers to plant […]

Making a More Environmentally Friendly Horse Farm

Spring is here, and everything’s turning green. Take a cue from Mother Nature and add a little green to your farm routine. If you’re running a farm or visiting a boarding stable on the regular, you’re participating in an important conservation effort, whether you knew it or not. Farmland conservation promotes green-space in rapidly developing areas, supporting animal and plant life which would otherwise be threatened by new construction.

So just by participating in the farm lifestyle, you’re making a difference. What’s next? Here are a few ways to add environmentally friendly practices to […]

Three Surfaces for your Stable Aisle

When we think about designing our dream stable, our minds often go first to the stalls. With good reason — our horses spend a decent percentage of time in their stalls, so we want them to be roomy, safe, and comfortable. Then we think about our tack room, our wash-racks, our amenities — all the extras that make the stable comfortable for us, the humans in the equation. But we might actually spend the most time of all in our stable aisle, getting from place to place, grooming horses, or just plain hanging out and having a chat with friends. It […]

5 Tips for Winter Barn Prep

Winter barn prep… in September? Well, we might be in the dog days now, but autumn is just a few weeks away, and, depending on where you live, winter may be hard on its heels. So even though your thoughts may be on keeping cool, it’s time to consider how you, your horses, and your barn will fare at keeping warm this winter.

Blanket Inspection. It’s time to open up those scary contractor’s bags and tack trunks where you’ve been storing the winter rugs, brush away the dust and spiders (we’re sorry) and […]