Horse stalls serve a vital purpose and are necessary for many horses, especially those with a history of injury or illness that require rest or recovery. However, they can also be detrimental to horses’ mental health, causing them to develop anxiety and stress. They can also cause them to develop a variety of behaviors such as wood chewing, stall walking and excessive pacing.
The Benefits of Horse Stalls
In general, it is best to minimize the amount of time a horse spends in his stall. While a day in a stall is fine for most horses, weeks or even months can be problematic horse stall door. It’s important to provide plenty of exercise and social interaction for your horses so that they don’t become bored and start acting out in frustration.
When building your barn, consider incorporating windows in all the stalls that open and eave and ridge vents for air circulation. This will help reduce dust and ammonia in the stalls and keep the environment healthier for your horses. Stalls should have a ring for tying placed at or above horse wither height, as well as an area for feed buckets and water tubs. Stall walls should be sturdy enough to withstand kicking and be at least 8 feet high to prevent horses from getting their legs over the partitions.
Other options for stall design include paired housing, which pairs compatible horses in double-sized stalls and allows visual, auditory and tactile contact between the two; group barns, such as those used by the Spanish Riding School’s breeding program to house broodmares, with mares returning to private box stalls only at foaling time; or individual single-box stalls that allow visual, audible and touch-contact with horses stabled adjacently. All of these arrangements are more humane than solo stalls, but they do require additional monitoring and attention to herd dynamics.