Equipping the Barn

Whether you have a large barn or a small one, an inexpensive pre-fab building or an elaborate construction, you can equip it to make it more “user-friendly” for you and your horses. At the very least, your barn should provide safe shelter during inclement weather. At best, it can be a showplace designed for human convenience as well as horse health.

When building a new barn or fixing up

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Whether you have a large barn or a small one, an inexpensive pre-fab building or an elaborate construction, you can equip it to make it more “user-friendly” for you and your horses. At the very least, your barn should provide safe shelter during inclement weather. At best, it can be a showplace designed for human convenience as well as horse health.

When building a new barn or fixing up an old one, it helps to look at other barns and talk with people who have experience with certain features. This is especially important when considering health and safety of the horses. Bob Coleman, PhD, Equine Extension Specialist at the University of Kentucky, says it’s always worth your time and effort to visit other places and go to trade fairs in order to see what the possibilities are. Look at how you might make them work for your situation, and see what will and won’t work with your barn construction, he says.

Doors, Walls, and Latches

J. Clyde Johnson, VMD, a retired equine veterinarian and former president of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, has seen the problems created by barns or stalls that were not safe or healthy. “I’ve seen cases where a horse got his foot through the horizontal boards of a stall wall,” he says

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Heather Smith Thomas ranches with her husband near Salmon, Idaho, raising cattle and a few horses. She has a B.A. in English and history from University of Puget Sound (1966). She has raised and trained horses for 50 years, and has been writing freelance articles and books nearly that long, publishing 20 books and more than 9,000 articles for horse and livestock publications. Some of her books include Understanding Equine Hoof Care, The Horse Conformation Handbook, Care and Management of Horses, Storey’s Guide to Raising Horses and Storey’s Guide to Training Horses. Besides having her own blog, www.heathersmiththomas.blogspot.com, she writes a biweekly blog at https://insidestorey.blogspot.com that comes out on Tuesdays.

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