Building or Renovating a Small Barn for Your Horse

By Jackie Clay

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$4.99 CAD

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ebook (Digital original)

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ebook (Digital original) $3.99 $4.99 CAD

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Since 1973, Storey’s Country Wisdom Bulletins have offered practical, hands-on instructions designed to help readers master dozens of country living skills quickly and easily. There are now more than 170 titles in this series, and their remarkable popularity reflects the common desire of country and city dwellers alike to cultivate personal independence in everyday life.

Introduction

When it comes to providing adequate shelter for domestic animals, horses are among the easiest you’ll deal with. Contrary to what you might think, horses are sturdy, adaptable creatures, and their housing requirements are very basic: shade, ventilation, protection from the elements, and comfortable, dry footing. Now, this may sound simple, and it can be, but remember that horses are also large, strong, active, and playful. I’ve seen a horse happily and safely housed in a three-sided shed that cost less than $200 to build—and I’ve seen horses sick with respiratory diseases, thrush, navicular disease, lameness, and severe injuries, all of which occurred in shelters that were very expensive and looked picture perfect.

Building a horse barn is quite a project—and there is a vast and varied array of plans and books available to help you. But renovating a shelter to make it fit for just one or two horses, or building a sturdy three-sided shelter, can be quite simple, even if you have only basic carpentry skills. And that’s what I’ll talk about here.

The Fundamentals of Building for Horses

The fundamentals of proper construction for horse housing are:

Tips and Techniques for Remodeling

Often the best and most obvious choice for horse housing is simply to modify an existing structure. Unused older cow barns, chicken coops, wooden sheds, and garages can often easily and economically be remodeled to suit a horse. And you don’t have to be a professional contractor to build good, solid housing for your horse. Remember, horses can live well in structures as simple as lean-tos and three-sided run-in sheds.

Building a Simple Run-In Shelter

Where only one or two friendly horses need to be housed and you don’t have an existing structure that lends itself to proper renovation, often the best way to go is to build a simple run-in shed from scratch.

Designing the Layout for a Small Barn Renovation

There are many types and styles of economical small horse barns, but all of the good ones have a few things in common:

Roofing Your Horse Barn

Several roofing materials are available, but the best system I’ve seen used is plywood covered with corrugated sheet metal. The sheet metal is long lasting, resists hail and wind damage when properly screwed down, seldom leaks, and—its greatest advantage—protects against grass and forest fires. Many barns and other structures are lost to fires started by burning firebrands carried in the wind, and this alone is reason enough to use sheet metal on your barn roof.

But used alone, and on an enclosed barn, sheet metal can cause condensation problems such as frosting up on cold nights. This frost forms on the underside of the roof, to later thaw and drip down on the horses. In most cases you can prevent this by using ¾-inch (1.9 cm) plywood underneath the sheet metal. This generally prevents heavy condensation problems, plus it will greatly strengthen the roof against wind and heavy snow loads.

In northern areas, where heavy snows are common, be sure your roof slopes steeply enough to quickly shed falling snow. A snow-covered roof may be picturesque, but that pretty white stuff weighs tons—literally—and can weaken or even cave in a barn roof if it stays up there long enough.

Building a Stall

Individual stalls themselves are constructed after the barn is “dried in”—when the shell is built.

Step 1: Reinforce the frame. Set sturdy, 6- to 8-inch-diameter (15–20 cm) poles or squared timbers 3 feet (90 cm) into the ground in a concrete base at each of the inside stall corners. Make sure that these poles are strong and secure, because they form the framework for the stall. (And if you’re building a large stall, add additional poles as necessary so that no pole is more than 12 feet, or 3.7 m, from another.)