Our barn is always a work in progress. You can read about how we started building our barn and about our incredible barn raising experience here.
Josh is an incredible builder. Remember, when we came to the ranch there was nothing but land. Josh, with the help of his family, has built everything that is here. You can read about that story here.
Back to the barn…. Josh is an incredible builder who studies what he wants and what works for horse barns and for our horses. His dream is to make this barn amazing…automatic waterers, nice feeders, good stalls with stall mats.
Nowadays it’s so important to stay out of debt and so we improve our barn as we can and we do what we can with as little cost as we can. The amazing thing about Josh is that he can make something out of nothing.
This week Josh has been redoing the walls of the barn. He is rebuilding the walls making the them double sided vertical walls as opposed to the single sided horizontal walls we have had for the last few years. This makes the walls so much stronger against horses that may kick. In this first stall you can see how it looks on the front with the wood going vertical. He’s replaced the wood on all the outside of the barn to run vertical but has only done one on the inside stalls. Look at the difference it makes! He will continue down the row of stalls replacing the wood to go vertical rather than horizontal.
We’ve also put sand in the bottom of the stalls to make it drain better. And, excitedly we were able to get a geotextile that Josh is testing in one of the stalls. If it holds up we will put it in all of the stalls. If the geotextile works we will be able to drastically cut down on the amount of sawdust that we use and it will make cleaning out the stalls so fast!
Another thing Josh has added is windows for the outside stalls. Each window will have a shutter door that you can open or close depending on the weather. You will also notice wood and metal bars in between some of the stalls. Those will eventually be added to all the stalls which will reduce horses fighting over the stall walls. I love how the wood and metal look together!
Here is what is looks like from the outside of the barn so far. The siding will go on next. We are excited to see how it looks.
Another cool feature that Josh has added to the barn is a feeder that allows the horse to feed like they are in a pasture- slow and eating all day long. This feeder allows the horse to graze more naturally by slowing down their rate of consumption and thus reducing ulcers they might get from un-natural grazing . We’ve been observing our horse and experimenting with the spacing between the bars. Since this picture was taken, we’ve spaced the bars farther out to get a better pace of hay consumption.
Doesn’t this horse look so content? There is nothing like a good barn! Onward……!
October 11,2012