3 Types of Yokes in Horse Stall Doors

November 20, 2022

When designing horse stalls, we understand just how important it is to make sure your horse is comfortable. We believe that comfort can mean several things in a horse stall. That includes large enough horse stalls, ample airflow in a stall, easy access to water and feed, and even the ability to socialize with other horses. When it comes our Horse Stall Fronts, the addition of a yoke to a Sliding Horse Stall Door is extremely popular.

What is a "yoke?" It is the opening in a horse stall door through which a horse can hang his head outside of the horse stall. The inclusion of a yoke in your horse stall door allows your horses the ability to stick their heads into the aisle to feel a part of the barn community. While a yoke might be best for every single stall and horse, the addition can prevent boredom and boost moods.

Yokes come in all sorts of styles including v-shaped yokes, square yokes, rectangular yokes, and more. In this blog, we'd like share visuals and things to consider with the different styles in yokes.

Yoke Opening

One of the most popular design choices is a simple, open yoke design. This yoke design is a cut-out – available in many designs – that is open at all times. We can custom design and build just about any style for a yoke opening. This includes popular options such as V-Shaped Yokes, Gentle European Yokes, Straight Rectangular Yokes, and other styles.

This design allows your horse to hang their head out of their stall – while maintaining in the center of the horse stall door. The design can be lowered or raised depending on your horses' deposition.

Hinged Fold Down Yoke:

Similar to other yoke designs, our hinged fold down yokes can be made in various designs – whether it is v-shaped, straight rectangular, or anything else. These yokes feature our plunger latch and heavy-duty hinges. Our selection in welded hinges make sure that your yoke is long-lasting and operates smoothly for years to come.

The plunger latches provides you with the ability to open and close the yoke as you see fit. For example, our hinged yoke can allow you to keep the yoke open during the daytime, but closed during the night time. Another use case for this yoke style can be in a training and boarding barn. For example, there might be certain stalls where horses get along well. In these cases, you can simply drop the yoke down to allow socialization for well-behaved horses. In contrast, some horses (i.e. stallions) might get along as well – for which the closed position is preferred.

Removable Yokes:

Our Removable Yoke designs offer the best of both worlds – similar to the above hinged fold down yokes. These yokes start with an open yoke design (our first mentioned design). This is where it is a cut-out in the door. We then expertly place holes in the opening's top (in the door frame) and the yoke's bottom center. We then build an external yoke-piece that fits seamlessly into that yoke opening to close into place.

This yoke option is particularly useful for larger, busier horse barns where a client is adding yoke openings on the stall doors. Our team can prep all of the yoke openings to have the pre-drilled holes and slots to receive these removable yoke pieces. This then saves the expense of putting a hinged fold down yoke in every stall.

We hope that this article has helped give you more insight into available yoke options for your horse stall doors. 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 assisting in bringing your dream barn project to life!

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