Horses are the most wonderful creatures but keeping them housed often involves figuring out how to mitigate the damage they do to the barn.
A small Horizon Structures center aisle barn.
Understand your horse’s behavior because If your horse is exhibiting unusual behavior such as tail rubbing or leaning consider what could be the causative factor causing damage to your barn.
© 2016 by Photomak New window.
A bored horse will always get into mischief. The equine that exhibits behavioral bad habits can cause significant stress on their owners as well as dealing with it themselves. And then there are the daily damage factors that just come with horse territory. Housing and handling 1500 pounds of horse flesh is going to come with challenges.
Let’s look at the common damages that occur at horse farms and learn how they can be resolved or avoided.
The Issues
There is a long list of inevitable issues that most horse barns or structures will endure but not of them are caused by horses. Humans too can inflict accidental damage to the barn especially with the equipment used in daily farm life. The key causative factor to building damage by equipment is poor access design. But let’s focus on the horse contingent for now.
Our equine bad actors include:
- The wood chewer
- The wall and door kicker
- The wall pooper
- The mat digger
- The tail rubber
- The leaner
- The bucket banger
- The grill bar biter
Any and all of these habits can quickly become more than a minor annoyance and all will likely result in the need for cleaning and/or repairs. Even run-in sheds are not immune from damage though they are not strictly speaking confining the horse.
Simple Fixes Begin With Good Initial Barn Design
When a horse barn is in its design phase or being renovated there are many areas where risks for damage to the structure can be prevented. Here are the main features to consider:
- All protruding angled wood surfaces should be protected from chewing by horses with a metal strip.
- Kickboard stall walls from floor to ceiling height of 8-10′ with substantial dimensional lumber for maximum protection of walls from impact. Here’s the Low Down on Kickboards in Horse Design.
- Stall walls should be reinforced between wood boards or vertically with flat metal brackets to prevent warping or boards popping off or cracking under the strain of a horse rubbing or leaning against the surface.
- Install roller guides on the base of sliding stall doors to prevent doors kicking out.
- Ensure all stall doors have heavy duty hardware and are substantially made and importantly are high enough to prevent leaning or rearing/jumping over them.
- Bars on stall grillwork should be close enough together to afford no opportunity for the average horse to grab bars between their teeth.
- Seal all stall walls before using to a smooth finish for easy power washdown during deep cleaning.
- Glue joints between rubber mats if individual mats are fitted or utilize a lock grid stall mat design.
- Place run-in sheds within a fence line with only the front entrance open to the pasture.
- Electric fence the interior of board-fenced pastures to deter wood chewing or leaning/rubbing.
- Hang water buckets with fixtures that support both the bucket handle and the flat back of the bucket against the wall. Consider installing low-profile automatic waterers.
Understand Your Horse’s Behavior
If your horse is exhibiting unusual behavior such as tail rubbing or leaning consider what could be the causative factor. A few common examples you may encounter:
- Infection with pinworms can cause a horse to rub its tail. A dewormer program with the right product (benzimidazoles or pyrantel pamoate) can resolve this issue.
- Excessive skin irritation from pesky bugs and insects can make a horse miserable. Use flymasks/flysprays/sheets and night time turnout schedules with run-in shed shelter to assuage the problem.
- A horse with hives caused by poor mucking out practices/inadequate stall hygiene or an adverse reaction to something he has ingested can turn to smashing buckets and wall rubbing. Review barn management practices and horse grain feeds/supplements/dry forage and pasture plant life.
- Offer the horse more turnout time if he exhibits stress or boredom.
- Evaluate stress factors that may induce your horse to seek respite using behavioral fixations or negative habits. These factors could be intimidating equine neighbors causing distress; the equid is suffering some level of pain or discomfort; or other environmental concerns such as being stabled in an over active location in a high traffic barn where the horse is constantly challenged with horses passing by the stall or excessive noise/commotion from equipment.
About Horizon Structures: One horse or twenty, there’s one thing all horse owners have in common…the need to provide safe and secure shelter for their equine partners. At Horizon Structures, we combine expert craftsmanship, top-of-the-line materials and smart “horse-friendly” design to create a full line of sheds and barns that any horse owner can feel confident is the right choice for their horses’ stabling needs. All wood. Amish Made. Most of our buildings are shipped 100% pre-built and ready for same-day use. Larger barns are a modular construction and can be ready for your horses in about a week. All our barn packages include everything you need to move your horses right in.
Horizon Structures also sells chicken coops, equine hay feeders, greenhouses, dog kennels.
You can also find garages, sheds and outdoor living sets available at Horizon’s sister company Stoltzfus Structures.
Headquartered in South-Central Pennsylvania, Horizon Structures, LLC was founded by Dave Zook. Dave was raised in the Amish tradition and grew up working in the family-owned shed business. He started Horizon Structures in 2001 in response to an ever-increasing customer demand for high quality, affordable horse barns. Over the years, the company has grown and now has several build shops located throughout the US enabling them to service customers nationwide.
For additional information about the company or their product line, please visit their website at https://www.horizonstructures.com
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