Prepping for Horses

 I last posted on horse barn project progress two and a half months ago.  There's a whole lot that's happened since then.

We bought stall mats!  That was an epic search in itself, trying to find somewhere that sells the 4' x 6', 3/4" thick rubber mats with grooves on the bottom side (for better grip to the stall base) and a slight texture for traction on the top side.  For some reason the vast majority of places we looked, both in store and online, are carrying mats that are completely smooth on one side (not good for horses to walk on, very slippery when the slightest bit wet--like a humid summer day or when there's a fresh pee puddle) and have raised circles on the other (folks, I've cleaned stalls that had mats like that and they're killer on your plastic manure fork tines, plus it's really hard to sweep them clean of packed fine bedding/manure particles especially if that stuff is wet).  Those wouldn't do. Not in my barn.

We were about ready to order some from a place out of state and actually take a day to go get them and bring them back to this little place here.  And then, out of the blue, I found the right kind of mats only about 30 miles away.

Not only did I find the right mats, they were on sale when I found them!  Normally $50 per mat, they were only $35 each.  Hallelujah!  With a price savings like that, and being how hard they were to find, DH said we should go ahead and get enough mats for all six stalls even though our goal was to finish just two stalls before winter.  The savings on buying all the mats we'd need at the $35 price rather than as needed at regular price was like getting about 10 mats for free.  That's about 1 2/3 stalls out of the six we're going to build matted at zero cost.

unloading a pallet and a half of  mats with the tractor

Of course now that we had them, we needed to install them.  They are heavy (almost 100 pounds each) and I'd heard horror stories about installing them, especially when you need to cut a mat to fit around a post in the stall, or if your stalls aren't exactly 12' x 12' (which with mine aren't as we put boards over the steel barn siding to protect it from being kicked through by a naughty horse).  Having build lots of stuff ourselves, with the exception of one miscut mat (whew, glad we had more on hand than just the 12 mats needed for two stalls!) everything went easy peasey.  Keep your utility knife blade sharp, measure three times not just twice, and snap a chalk line on your mat to keep your cut straight.

a matted stall

 (with a whole bunch of dusty footprints from carrying each mat in over the packed base)

Like all aspects of this horse barn project, we didn't actually buy mats and install them on consecutive days.  Nope, I think we actually owned mats for about a month before we got around to installing them.  Because on good weather days, we needed to take advantage of the favorable conditions and work outside.  On fences.  There were gates to hang, like the one below which is 16' and allows access into the pastures with machinery (like the haybine and baler used to cut and bale the second cutting hay in August).

There were t-posts, lots and lots of t-posts to pound in rows to mark the individual pastures within the 6-7 acres we fenced in with the non-climb mesh.  We put in posts for two initial pastures of approximately one acre each.

running a tape line to keep our t-post row straight and evenly spaced

Once there were t-posts marking the boundaries of the pastures, we had to put the insulator clips on them (three per post) and then we needed to string the three rows of 1.5" electric fence tape up to complete the fencelines.  Plus a single strand of same electric tape 6" above the non-climb perimeter fence to discourage any horse that thinks they might want to try to lean over the fence and eat what's on the other side (typically squashing the fence shorter).

Of course this all didn't happen in a weekend either, as pounding in about 1,000 linear feet of t-posts spaced 10 feet apart didn't happen in one day.  And, while the clip on insulators for the t-posts were readily available locally, for some reason matching white insulated caps for the posts (for the top strand of fencing) were rare.  Tons and tons of yellow ones, but only a few packages of white ones (and we needed about twenty packages) could be found--at $15 per package of 10.  

Online, DH found a place down south that had the white caps for less than $9 a package, although it was somewhere neither of us had ever heard of before and thus weren't sure we wanted to just trust an unknown website to actually send us 20 packages of caps if we entered our credit card info for a payment of $180 plus shipping.  I emailed customer service of a horse supply/tack shop I have done online business with for many years and asked if they would be willing to price match.  They agreed, and so we ordered our 20 packages of caps from there, even getting free shipping since the total order price exceeded their minimum requirement to qualify for free shipping.  Shipping was very quick, so in the end it worked out better than trying to convince the local farm store to price match the online place plus order the extra quantity we needed that exceeded their tiny supply in stock.

Once we had all the insulators, caps and electric tape installed, DH needed to put in the grounding rods, and run electrical wire from the fence blitzer located in the barn, outside to the first corner of the fence.  The electric tape on the perimeter is what is directly connected to that wire, and then jump wires had to be put on from that top strand of tape to the three strands of electric tape on each cross fence where they abut the perimeter.  This was only recently finished; as you can see in the pictures below the trees have lost their leaves by now.

Before DH went on his elk hunting trip out to Colorado in early October, he worked on electrical inside the barn, getting the outlet and switchbox for the aisle lights in.  Now we could work in the evenings too, and on cloudy stormy days that didn't have much sunlight.  Which was good, since most of our project time was after DH was done with his regular job each day, and there wasn't nearly as much daylight for that as there had been in June, July and August.

He also put in the light above the two stalls we'd finished, although until we get the outer wall of the tack room built (where the switchbox for the stall light is going to go), I control that light by turning on and off the circuit breaker in the electric panel.

While he was away elk hunting, I stained and sealed the stall walls, both inside the stalls and on the aisle side.  It was something I felt was necessary as I don't want to eventually end up with graying wood or with walls that have manure stains soaked into them.  I wanted to keep the wood light, as barn interiors tend toward the dark side anyway, so chose a stain with barely any tint to it.

Partially stained, 

you can see the difference between the natural fairly freshly milled pine color and the stain tint.

(Note the floor had not been matted yet)

All stained!

Once we got power to the fence, there were just a few small odds and ends until the barn was ready for horses to move in.  A major 'small' thing was that I insisted DH finally (after 18 years!) put the door handles on the big barn doors, both inside and outside so they were easier for me to open.  Because on nasty cold days, who wants the barn door open longer than necessary and it's so much faster if I can open the door with one hand while holding a horse in the other, walk through, and without letting go of the horse, shut the door behind me (with one hand).  He can usually open the doors with one hand even without handles, but I almost always need both hands.  I was so happy the day those handles were put on and I could slide doors open and closed effortlessly.

A handle on the door!

Another 'can wait until last' little thing was installing the bucket hangers in the stalls for water buckets and the corner grain feeders.  I did not want to feed out of floor tubs, as horses tend to dump them and then waste feed by getting bedding in it (thus not eating it).  And I didn't want corner feeders that are permanently attached to the walls, as those are a pain in the rear to clean and sanitize (in the instance, say a horse decides to poop in it, or when a new horse will be living in that stall and I want to sanitize feeders between occupants).  So I needed eye screws in the corner from which to hand the grain feeder.

The buckets were hung, 

in the stalls with care;

in the hope that horses

soon would be there.

And that, dear readers, brings us to this current week in time.