Stabling Draft Horses

4:06 am

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Essential Tips for Stabling Draft Horses Comfortably

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 […]

Landscaping for your Stable

2:37 am

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Facility Planning & Design

Landscaping

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 […]

Making a More Environmentally Friendly Horse Farm

4:07 pm

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Facility Planning & Design, Products

Making-a-More-Environmentally-Friendly-Horse-Farm

Creating an Eco-Friendly Horse Farm: Key Strategies

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 […]

Three Surfaces for your Stable Aisle

2:26 am

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Facility Planning & Design, Products

Top 3 Stable Aisle Surfaces for Safety and Durability

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 […]

5 Tips for Winter Barn Prep

9:00 am

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Equine Care, Facility Planning & Design

Top 5 Tips to Prepare Your Barn for Winter

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 […]

Stall Door Types: Pros and Cons

8:50 pm

4 Comments

Facility Planning & Design, Products

4 responses on “Stall Door Types: Pros and Cons”

When you’re designing your stable, seemingly hundreds of tiny details become very large decisions. Stall doors are one of those decisions that can affect your daily life at the barn, whether it’s your business or your hobby. Sliding, Dutch, grills, yokes — what’s the best stall door for you?

Sliding doors (as shown in the French Hill Farm project) are popular in barns and often come in prefab stall kits. They take up less space because they don’t intrude on the barn aisle, making it easier […]

Riding Arena Construction

7:43 am

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Facility Planning & Design, Guest Author

Choosing the Site

Choosing a suitable site for your Riding Arena is often dictated by the amount of land available to you. If you are short of land you won’t have much choice as to where the arena is built. If you are lucky enough to have a choice there are a variety of factors that should be considered. Some obvious, some not!

1. Access – The majority of people fail to consider the implications of poor access on arena construction. Poor access means suppliers cannot use large delivery vehicles thus dramatically increasing haulage costs as […]

Choosing Your Riding Arena’s Footing

12:22 am

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Facility Planning & Design, Products

Choosing Your Riding Arena’s Footing |Equine Facility Design

The footing we provide our horses is one of the most important aspects of a riding arena. The amount of concussion the footing absorbs from the horse’s legs, the quality of its drainage, even its life as the particles are tramped down through daily use, are all variables to consider and all you should evaluate. How do you choose your riding arena’s footing? Here are a few initial items to consider when looking at footing options.

Weather:
The climate will play a big role in […]