Are you building a new horse barn? Are you looking to renovate your existing barn? In either case, we tend to focus on things such as the horse stall fronts, barn end doors, the aisle flooring, the lighting, or even the tack hardware. After all, those are the shiny things that truly deliver that "wow" factor in our barns.
That leaves us with an often overlooked, yet important component to building our horse stalls – Stall Partitions.
Stall Partitions, also known as horse stall dividers, are an important part of your horse's experience in the barn. They are also crucial to your barn's day-to-day function. Although overlooked, we'd like to discuss the three most common types of horse stall partitions in this article. Stick around until the end as we'll even provide some bonus tips!
Things to Consider:
Before we dive into the three types, you should know that we build horse stall partitions in a variety of designs. All of our Partitions are built to exact design goals, measurements, and specifications. When making your decision on design, we recommend to factor in the following:
- The local climate around your barn – Is it hot and humid where your barn is located? Do you experience all four seasons?
- Your horses' temperaments – Do all of your horses get along? Are there certain horses that do not get along with other horses? Do certain horses need additional privacy during feeding? Do you have any stallions in your barn?
- Your facility's needs – A private barn's needs will differ greatly from a large commercial barn's needs. Will your barn have frequent visitors and new riders? Will horses come and go frequently?
- The stall's function - Will you be using any of the stalls for breeding? Will your stall be housing stallions? Will the stall be using for visiting and competing horses?
The above factors and questions are simply a starting point. These are just a handful of questions to consider when making a decision regarding your horse stall partitions. Let's now dive into the three most common styles!
Style #1 – Half-Grilled Partitions
Our Half-Grilled Stall Partition is one of our most popular Stall Partitions. This design features 1" bars across the top. All bars are set 3" centers meaning 2" of spacing from each end of each bar.
While the above Stall Partition is fixed, we can also make any Stall Partition hinged. Below is an example of a hinged Half-Grilled Stall Partition. This is perfect for a foaling stall where two stalls need to be combined to make one large foaling stall. Our hinged Stall Partitions are hung on heavy-duty bullet hinges while two Plunger Latches allow you to close and operate the partition.
Great For: This design is especially great for barns where the horses are friendly with their equine neighbors.
Our Take: This stall partition designs offers the most possible ventilation and socialization. This is because the partition includes a fully vented top-half (1" bars on top or welded mesh). The bottom is then filled with tongue and groove lumber. We recommend this design to most clients who’d like to maximize ventilation and socialization.
Style #2 – Partial Privacy Stall Partitions
Our Partial Privacy Stall Partitions are yet another popular Stall Divider design. The first one-thirds the "privacy" section. This section is framed with steel tubing and u-channel to allow you to fill it with lumber. The back two-thirds of this design includes 1" round bars safely set on 3" centers.
Great For: This design is a modified version of the above Half-Grilled Partitions. It is great for horses that get along well with their neighbors, but might need a bit more privacy – especially during feeding.
Our Take: This style provides the best of both worlds – ventilation and socialization all while providing some privacy. Another neat thing is that these partitions are also more cost-effective than the first style!
Style #3 – Full Privacy Stall Partitions
Great For: This design features full wood for maximum privacy. This full privacy design is well-suited for larger barns where need to limit socialization and contact among stall neighbors. It is also great for veterinary clinics, small private sales barns, and breeding facilities where stallions require isolation. It also great for barns where biosecurity containment is needed.
Our Take: While we try to promote ventilation in all of our stall designs, we understand that there is a functional need for Full Privacy Stall Partitions. These Partitions are often used in large show barns where horses visit, compete, and stay for short periods of times. Full Partitions allow horses privacy and comfort during their short stays. These Partitions are also great for veterinary facilities, boarding barns with quarantine stalls, and other uses.
Bonus: Did you know that we can also build Stall Partitions for your grooming bays and wash stall areas? Below are two examples!
Bonus Tips & Considerations:
Foaling Stalls:
All of the above Stall Partitions were fixed into place. However, we also offer clients the option to create hinged Stall Partitions that are perfect to create foaling horse stalls for breeding barns.
In this design, we simply add two heavy-duty barrel hinges on the back of each Stall Partition to allow your Stall Partition to swing open to transform two horse stalls into one large foaling stall. We install two of our Plunger Latches on the front of the Stall Partition to allow for easy unlocking and locking. This allows our clients to safely transform, for example, two 12'x12' stalls into one larger 24'x12' stall. Below is an example of this such stall partition.
All of the above Stall Partitions are Fully Welded Panel Systems. This means that these Partitions are fully welded, shipped as a panel, leaned upright, and then easily installed to your barn's post or walls. Our Fully Welded Systems are beautiful and require very little labor during installation. As an alternative though, we provide clients with the option to also purchase Stall Partition Kits.
Differences Between Kit Partitions & Fully Welded Stall Partitions
The main difference between our Kit Partitions and Fully Welded Partitions is that our Fully Welded systems include welded steel tubing, u-channel, and 1" bars. The Partition is then effectively ready to install once it is delivered to our client. In contrast, our Partition Kits require our clients and their general contractors to build the Partition onsite using hardware based on the design. Hardware includes u-channels, wall-stiffeners, and custom lengths of grillwork.
While the kit option requires more labor during installation, it is a way for clients to stay within their project budget. One last idea for any tight barn projects is to start with a Full Privacy Partition Kit. You can then have the flexibility, in the future, to take out lumber and replace the top half with grillwork as time passes.
We hope that this article has helped give you more insight into available partition options – as well ideas for your barn project. Do you have any questions on this post or simply need help with your barn project? You can reach us at sales@americanstalls.com or a call at (855) 957-8255. Alternatively, you can also complete a Contact Us Form. We look forward to asssiting you soon!
