Tie/Standing Stalls

[Karma]

Do you use them? What do you like/dislike about them? How big are yours for what size horses?

Sorry I'm writing a book here but I want to be sure it is a good idea before spending the time to do it. I've been tossing around the idea of setting up some tie stalls just for feeding/drying off after work/waiting to be worked purposes. My horses mainly are in their pastures 24/7 except now we just have too many to feed safely in our small winter dry lot, additionally a few are pregnant mares so I don't like the thought of encouraging fighting or aggression that can happen durring feeding. Anyway the other reason is I'm so tired of mucking out huge box stalls from just a few hours use, it seems tie stalls would be more economical for our purposes saving bedding and mucking time since the waste will all be in one area. ALL of my horses except two yearling fillies that are just learning tie very well and are use to being in a similar situation and small space since they are trailered a lot. We do already have box stalls that we will use for foaling, young untrained horses, injuries or keeping someone in overnight.

Do you think they would be good for our situation? And if so what size should I make them? I have mostly AQHA and APHA registered horses from 14.2h to 16.3h. A friend suggested taking the length our our longest horse and width of the widest and adding 1 foot to width and length plus one foot plus space the feeders take up in the front to the length. Is that accurate? I was considering adding another 6-8" to the width since we do breed and some horses in them are pregnangt and early term so will get wider. Also, because I don't love the idea of butts facing me while I'm grooming or tacking another horse, or having a messy aisle, I want their heads facing the aisle, how big should the back aisle to lead them into the tie stalls be? And lastly I was wondering if it would be a terrible idea to put a small doors on the front side of the stalls so I can feed from the front aisle and have easier access to clip up/unclip ties and fill hay/water?

Oh and the very last thing, when tying in them should I use breakaway or leather halters or ties? I'd rather have a horse that is pulling back be able to get out and break a halter or tie than be trapped and trashing like crazy and hurt it's self or break the stalls.

 

[goodhors]

We have tie stalls, other places might call them straight stalls, draft stalls. We were brought
up using tie stalls, so we naturally included them when we set up our barns for horse-keeping.

We actually removed two box stalls and changed them to 4 tie stalls, because they worked
better for us.

Advantages are horses separated for feeding, horses get handled on a daily basis being led
in and out of the stalls. Horses get quite accepting of touching as you walk beside them to
bring in food or enter to take horses outside. I consider using tie stalls to be a huge savings
in bedding expense, along with much faster cleaning times. Another unconsidered benefit is
that horse learns much just from being stalled, so no extra training time is added to your day!

Length of stall will depend on if you have mangers in front or not. We have larger horses, 15H
to 17+H. Our stalls at the moment, do not have front mangers. They do have a corner feed
tub and a bucket or two, in the other corner. Tie rope is centered in the front.

Our horses all go thru extensive training to TIE WELL, anyplace, in all conditions. I ALWAYS have
them tied "hard and fast" with solid ropes, neck ropes, expensive nylon halters that WON'T break!
Probably my old Western training, but I want my horse to be where I left him on my return.
With breakaway halters, tie strings, junky ropes, the equine learns to break things and leave if
he is unhappy with his situation. He is DANGEROUS if taken to other places, trying to get loose,
especially if wearing equipment that breaks. He has learned that if he only "tries harder" that
SOMETHING WILL BREAK and he is loose. Then he is a danger to EVERYONE!! I have seen some
nasty wrecks caused by loose horses, in ridden, driven situations, causing OTHER horses to escape
and get hurt. All comes back to OWNER who trained horse to fight and break things while thinking
escaping animal is "safer".

Our horses, yearlings if we are raising them, all purchased horses, go thru extensive training and
hours of practice in tying. They learn to remove pressure by GIVING to a pull so pressure is gone!
They are tied at our wall, on trailers, at tall posts, alone, learning to be good horse citizens, all under
supervision. By the time they are promoted to a tie stall, they totally understand how to tie, don't
have any issues with a pull on the rope. I don't tie foals or weanlings under one year old, they don't
have enough maturity to be reliable in accepting of ropes yet. Purchased horses may appear to tie
well, but I want to INSURE they know how to manage, no holes in the training should a crisis arise.
We go many places, horses MUST tie well, be reliable when we go out in public.

Our main barn stalls are 12ft long, no mangers. They are 5 1/2ft wide, have a double wall between
the stalls. There is a full divider between heads which comes back to shoulder, so no food fighting.
Horses can reach nose back around the head divider if they WANT to touch, or stand and not be reached by
the horses along side them. The walls between are about 5ft high, you don't want a kicker getting a
leg over it, and I have long-legged horses. Kicking chains work if you get one that has "issues" about
their back end. Chains are self-correcting, do work pretty quick if you need to fix a horse. All the
kickers we had were purchased, not home raised. No marks on them, no increased difficulties in
working behind them, on their legs as time went on. They left as better horses than they started!

For ponies, 14-15H size equines, you could probably go with a 5ft width, unless they are quite stocky
in build. Drafty type animals, heavy boned, I would stay with at least 5 1/2ft widths, going to 6-6 1/2ft
wide for real draft animals.

We use heavy poly yellow rope, swimming pool stuff I think. It is back-braided into loops on both ends
for attaching snaps on both ends. Quick release on one end, bull snap on the other. Our quick release
snap has a twist barrel to release, which has worked very well for us, with the bull snap on the wall.
You can cut the rope if needed, the coarse fiber discourages chewing, is thick 3/4" so is nice to handle, unlikely
to rope burn a leg if horse gets one over it. A second method of tying is with an eye-screw on the wall,
a length of rope with a block on the wall end, snap for the horse. Horse can move forward and back with
rope always sliding to snug, with the block taking out the slack all the time. I don't want my horses backing
out into the aisle behind them with sliding rope length, so we went with fixed rope length and snap ends.
Buckets are hung with quick release snaps. I always put two snaps in a stall so they are ready to use, some
horses like two buckets overnight.

If I needed to have horses contained, I would put in tie stalls again. We consider it a training tool, just
so many benefits from using it. Helps keep costs down with less bedding needs. I only have two box
stalls now, used by the oldies or a mare with foal. The tie stall horses can and DO LAY DOWN, nap or sleep
in their tie stalls at night. Have not had any try to roll or get cast in a tie stall. Never learn to pace
their stalls, churning the bedding to a mess, or learning other bad habits while in the tie stalls.

 

[Lupa Duende]

You are fantastic!
Thank you for your reply. I have forced DH into taking sabbaticak and work through a severe case of manflu just to get the barn done and I need to learn as much as possible before it is done so we can make changes. Thank you for putting that down online.

 

[michickenwrangler]

I like tie stalls myself personally. Horses were housed that way for centuries. It has only been in the last 60-70 years that owners felt the need to supply 12 x 12 stalls for horses. Most working horses even today (police horses, rental horses, draft horses in cities and carriage horses) are usually in tie stalls.

Agree with goodhors that it teaches manners and actually leads to LESS stereotypy behavior such as weaving and cribbing than do box stalls.

 

[allbyme]

All really great advice here but I didn't see anyone suggest that the ties should be up high enough to keep their heads up. If this has already been mentioned I'm sorry didn't see it.

 

[goodhors]

Actually, the tie stall ropes are anchored on an eye screw about chest level, no higher than point of shoulder.
Tying high is great for putting a horse on the side of a trailer, picket rope at a trail ride or training to
tie. In daily stall life, horse MUST be able to lower the head to get nasal drainage to work
as designed. The lower head on floor, gets throat and nasal passages cleared after eating, or just standing
around. Actually is a requirement for good health! Horse NEEDS to put head low at least every few hours.

Our tie stall ropes are not long, hang down enough that the snaps will lay on the floor, though none of the rope
itself is on the floor. The little horse has a slightly shorter rope, since she was almost turning around in the stall
with that extra bit of length. Horses can put heads on the floor if they lay down. They certainly can nose around on
the floor to clean up any hay fed to them on the stall floor. A couple of the stalls have iron corner hay mangers,
but not all of them. Hay still falls to the floor, and horses can reach to clean it up in their tie stalls with that
length of tie rope.

Here are some photos of the tie stalls if you would like to look. Green Bucket is the little horse stall, with the slightly
shorter tie rope hanging down. If you get to the horses, the tallest three are at 17H, while the little one is about 16H and
VERY flexible. Know that none are real small animals. Put that with the stall measurements of my first post,
to get proportions for evaluation of fit. I will add some more bar dividers when I can locate any. Some like
touching thru the bars more than others. Bars make for good visibility looking down the aisle and air-flow in the barn.

http://s1355.photobucket.com/user/g...rt=3&o=5&_suid=136423116128607720647360158269

 

[allbyme]

Oops my bad :/ I stand corrected, sorry my info was wrong. I haven't had experience with tie stalls just tying of multiple horses in various situations. Great set up Goodhorse, love the pic !

 

[goodhors]

Not being able to put heads down to the ground, came to my attention when we had
some horses shipped on commercial vans. They tend to cross-tie horse heads, which
doesn't allow reaching down to the ground. The company we used had the fact that
horses were unclipped every two hours, allowed to lower heads for nasal drainage and
cleaning, as part of their services! I asked about why they advertised this fact, got the
"low-down" on why it is so needed in horses. ESPECIALLY when animals are in these
closed vans, warm air, maybe some hay dust in the air. It can be a big factor in horse
arriving at the destination healthy!!

So I learned a lot that day, used that Van company, and had a happy, healthy horse
arrive at the place with no after effects from her long time on the Van. Used them
more than once and recommended that Van Company to other folks I knew that had to
ship horses. Sometimes those little things can make a huge difference to a horse.
We also stop and loosen tie ropes when hauling our horses in the trailer on long hauls,
so they can lower their heads to clean out. Part of giving drinks of water, checking
hay bags, gving legs a rest while travelling. Does make a difference when they finally arrive.

 

[CritterZone]

Not being able to put heads down to the ground, came to my attention when we had
some horses shipped on commercial vans. They tend to cross-tie horse heads, which
doesn't allow reaching down to the ground. The company we used had the fact that
horses were unclipped every two hours, allowed to lower heads for nasal drainage and
cleaning, as part of their services! I asked about why they advertised this fact, got the
"low-down" on why it is so needed in horses. ESPECIALLY when animals are in these
closed vans, warm air, maybe some hay dust in the air. It can be a big factor in horse
arriving at the destination healthy!!

I recently hauled two horses from New Mexico to Oregon. I stopped every couple hours and offered water and treats (carrots and apples), but I never untied the horses and let them stretch their heads down. When I arrived at the Golden Spike arena in Ogden, Utah, I unloaded the horses and offered them more water. One of the horses put his head down to drink and snot poured out his nose. I thought maybe we drove through some allergens, I had been sneezing my brains out, but now I realize it was because he could only put his head to his chest, not his knees. The other horse didn't have the problem, but I loaded and tied him myself. He didn't have the problem the second day, but they were loaded and tied in a different configuration..