OT: horse barn roof height

I'm planning on adding a horse facility to the side of my barn as a leanto. What eave height should I try for? What size stalls for pleasure horses? This in florida and will be rustic in keeping with the rest of the barn. Very open to suggestions.

Keep it high enough to get equipment in to clean out the manure!

Better ask locally to avoid being blackballed by the local horse communtiy :roll:

I would make 10x10 (or 12x12) stalls and 10x20 (12x24) outside pen. You're in FL, I'd leave the frt wide open and build it facing away from wind. The more fresh air you have, the healthier horses you'll have.

Dave

I've got 10 foot ceilings in my stalls...plenty for most horses under 16 hands unless they REALLY go apesh*t. I've got a 17 hand TB that comes close though.
Hint- mount cross ties at shoulder hight rather than overhead to help keep any crazies from getting into the rafters

12' by 12' seems to be a standard size I've seen and read about. They need room for the rare time they lay down. Get too small and someone can get hurt when a horse gets a little giddy. Get too big and the horse wants to play keep away. As far as height, go as high as possible. My barn has 8' ceilings and horses have bumped their heads on the rafters and broke out the lights. Put lights up into the rafters. Horses can get claustrophic very easy so the more open space the better. Design it so you have some feed bunks accessible from one side for feeding hay. Same for water. A alley way down the middle is handy for that.

Mine has a feed bunk at the end of the stall. I added fence and bracing all the way to the ceiling and cut a hole in the floor of the loft for dropping hay down. That was back when we put small bales in the loft.

If you feed big bales, leave the side/end open so you can move them in out of the rain.

Make sure any horse ties are solid so the horse don't pull your barn supports down. I have some old rubber inner tubes tied to the posts and tie on horse to them. It will stretch and then release the pressure when the horse quits pulling. I held out a tube of wormer last week and one horse pulled back and pulled that old scrap pile inner tube apart. I think it had a tear in it anyway. He didn't pull the second one apart.

Have a place for feed storage and a cabinet for tack that will keep the dust and crud off of it. We've been using a stall for storage since we don't use the stalls any more. They just roam free.

I guess it could hinge on the size of the pleasure horse! ^D

Me I think about my head room.

14 year old 28 inch mare on the left and 4 week old 24 inch foal on the right.

10x10 or 12x12 seem to be most common sizes. Higher the better, both for safety and air circulation. I don't think it's rare for horses to lay down. Most ones at our barn lay down every night and my 17H TB has no problem getting up and down in a 10x10.

I think the biggest factor is how much space you've got to work with and how many stalls you want. I.e. if your barn is 60' long and you want the lean-to extend the whole length, that means 10x10 if you want 6 stalls or 12x12 if you can get by with 5 stall.

You don't say where the doors will be (barn side or eave side) or what roof slope you want (mostly picked for aesthetic reasons to complement or match the barn roof). But if the stall doors are on the barn side, and you use a 4/12 pitch, a 12 ft stall with an eave height of 8 ft would give you 12 ft height at the barn wall which is plenty. Can a horse bump his head in that scenario? Sure, but will probably only do it once or twice. :wink:

I would make it low enough that the horse would bang his head every time he entered the barn. Thats about the only way you will knock any sense into a horse.

Just built one and it works fine. 12 x 36 hence 3 - 12 x 12 stalls. Front height posts are at 9'6" and the rear posts are at 7'6". Used sawmill lumber 2 x 6's, 1 x 4 lath and boxed in with 1 x ---. Back wall is plenty high for my 16h trail horses.

My dad always said," If you cant say something nice then dont say anything at all"