Designing Your Yard

The Animal Health and Welfare Act 2006 places a duty of care on pet owners to ensure that the needs of their animals are met.

Under the new law, animals must have adequate room, fresh bedding and shelter from adverse weather. They must be allowed to express their natural behaviour and to interact with other animals where appropriate.

A solitary life in a stable is not a natural place for a horse to be; our job is to provide you with options so you can choose a safe, suitably sized, correctly sited, properly engineered, durable and horse friendly stable. It should be designed to reduce the chances of your horse developing stereotypic behaviours so he stays healthy in body And mind.

Stereotypic Behaviour

This used to be known as stable vices, i.e. box walking, weaving and crib biting. Horses exhibiting these signs were, and still are, considered to be less valuable. Nowadays we recognise that these behaviours are symptoms of stress caused by the lack of opportunity to carry out natural behaviour patterns.

Stable or Cage?

Horses are stabled purely for our own convenience. They survived in the wild for centuries, but in order to work a horse needs extra food and care, so we pluck him from his natural environment, and shut him in a stable.

Or is it a cage? When planning your new stabling, if you try to consider your horse's basic behavioral requirements, you may have a much happier horse, and happy horses behave better and perform more effectively.

Site

Choose a position where the horse can enjoy any available sunshine, and try to avoid siting the box where it will be subjected to wind and driving rain. Horses like company, so site the stable where he can see what is going on in the yard and take an interest in the surroundings. (If you have to face your box towards a brick wall, ask the manufacturer to fit an extra window in the back.) Do not forget to consider mundane matters like the positioning of the muck pile! It is worth a long hard look at the design at the planning stage, as a well laid out yard with conveniently positioned hay, feed and tack stores can save a huge amount of time and effort later.

Planning Permission

All authorities seem to interpret the rules slightly differently, so if in doubt, ask. All reputable manufacturers will give you all the drawings you will need (except location plans), and most will help with any forms you do not understand.

Base

Ask your stable manufacturer for a base specification, and choose a reputable local builder to do the work. If you try to save money on the base, the chances are you will involve yourself in extra expense if the erection team arrives to put up your building and find the base works are not good enough to put the building on. You will need to lay enough stone to provide a stable base, followed by a damp-proof membrane and 4-6" of concrete. A course of bricks is then laid to receive the building. All buildings, without exception, should be securely bolted down to the base. Ask how many fixings are used, and in what position.

Choosing A Building

You will have your own ideas on the quality you require, and the price you can afford to pay. Do not forget that you will get what you pay for; if you opt for the cheapest, you will get the least expensive timber, the lowest specification and a poorer finish. Satisfy yourself right from the start that the building is good enough to do the job you require, and do not except a very cheap box to last as long or look as nice as a more expensive one. If you are confused by the manufacturer's brochure, give them a ring and ask them to explain. It will also give you an opportunity to see if they are happy to supply any extras or special details which you would like...more of that later.

Timber

Looseboxes are generally made of softwood, either whitewood (spruce) or redwood (pine). Canadian or European timber is generally superior to British timber because British timber grows faster, is less stable & has more knots. Wood is a natural product, so it will react to atmospheric changes, shrinking and swelling with the prevailing conditions which may make the knots drop out of the cladding leaving holes in the walls. Timber which has grown slowly has narrower rings so it is more stable and reacts less to changes in humidity. The cladding itself may be weatherboard, shiplap or tongue and groove shiplap. The later is most waterproof and therefore most expensive. Some boxes will need to be painted with preservative every year, but the more expensive should have been pressure treated. This means that the timber has been subjected to a vacuum to remove the air from the cells, which is then replaced with the preservative solution under high pressure. The solution used combines chemically with the timber so that it cannot be washed out by rainwater. You have to decide whether it is worth the extra initial expensive not to have to follow an annual maintenance program. If you feel it is, look for the words 'pressure impregnated' as all other 'treatments' are dipped or painted on and will gradually leach out. The disadvantage of pressure treatment is that the solution contains salt which may encourage chewing.

Light

Timber boxes are often dark, so try and find a design which is large, light and airy with a big window. (Check to see that when open, the top door does not cover the window and obstruct light.) The price you are paying will determine whether you get a fixed pane, sliding section or full joinery window with a galvanized guard. Translucent roof sheets can also make a huge difference to the light, but keep an eye out for the 'greenhouse effect' in the summer and be ready to put something over the sheet to stop the sun beating down on it if the weather is really hot.

Ventilation

A horse's lungs are particularly susceptible to irritation and infection when subjected to foul air in a stuffy box. (Can the increasing instances of hay allergies really be solely attributed to the type of fodder nowadays as so many people seem to think? Surely the type of stabling is more credible; consider the large airy boxes of the Victorian Era...)

Ensure the box you buy has a proper ventilation system with air inlets and outlets at different heights. The ideal system is where inlets admit air just above horse level; the air is warmed by the horse, rises to the roof and exits through ridge outlets, taking dust and other air pollutants with it. The window should open inwards, hinged at the bottom to encourage an upward airflow over and above the occupier. Only the most extreme conditions should necessitate shutting the top door - if the weather is really bad put extra rugs on the horse, but do not restrict air flow.

Lining

Boxes should be lined to at least 4ft height with a minimum of a half inch plywood, and preferably three quarter inch ply or Sterling Board. The latter looks like chipboard to the layman, but is in fact very different. It has 'strands' of timber bonded in alternate directions with exterior glue and is therefore extremely strong. Its major advantage over ply is that it has no layers of veneer to splinter off when kicked. One inch boards look nice but have an irritating tendency to come away from the wall, so make sure they will be either screwed on, or attached with ring shank nails. If you can afford to line the box to eaves level it will prevent the horse chewing the framework, (if your horse tends to chew his box, try giving him a leafy branch to pick at - when loose horses often browse, and it sometimes helps to keep them happy inside too.)

Framework

The framework is likely to be 3x2in timber (at 2ft centres.) Be wary of anything less. 4x2in timbers are more suitable for very large animals. As horses are gregarious creatures, it is unnecessarily unkind to keep them apart for their companions. Ask your manufacturer to leave a section of the partition wall open so that the horses can touch and smell their neighbour. If you are afraid they may argue, fit a grille in the hole. It is often surprising how much calmer a usually nervous horse will be if he is allowed contact with his neighbour, and it sometimes helps to settle box walkers etc too.

Doors

Every equestrian manual I have read (including the BHS) states that stable doors should be 4ft wide, so it is surprising how few manufacturers actually put 4ft doors in their boxes. Unless you have small ponies, you risk hip damage if you accept anything less; it is a false economy to cut corners here, so insist on the proper width. A stable door takes a fair amount of weight when a horse leans on it, so it is essential that it is robust enough to cope. It should be a minimum of 2in thick, and the lower section must be lined for all but the quietest animals. The door lining should be screwed, not nailed, to the frame. It is also worth paying a little extra for large door bolts with long staples; all timber moves with variations in the weather, and stable doors are notorious for sticking. Long staples will allow for this and you are less likely to have to adjust the door height every six months.

Roof

The roofing materials available are generally felt, asbestos substitute, steel profile, or Onduline. Felt has been used over plywood for many years and looks tidy but has poor insulative properties and needs a specialist ventilation system. The corrugated profiles of the other materials offer superior ventilation. Asbestos substitutes often have condensation problems, so many need lining, but it is durable and quiet. Plastic coated steel also causes condensation and is very noisy in heavy rain, but it is cheap and may be used if lined. Onduline is made from wood fibre impregnated with bitumen, and is favoured by many stable manufacturers these days as it appears to provide better insulation than the other materials, and is quite attractive as it comes in different colours to fit in with individual surroundings.

In conclusion, we would all love to have the best, but few can afford it, so we have to compromise and choose a specification which is within our own budget. Spend as much as you can afford, and do not expect to be able to get an up-market product at a knock down price. Just remember: the building MUST be bolted down; the structure MUST be sturdy with kickboards to 4ft; the ventilation MUST be adequate; the door MUST be strong; after all, if your horse decides to escape, that is the way out!