12x24, 12x20 & Other Offbeat Stall Sizes

I've been looking at a place to board and ride over the past few months and one particular place I have looked at (Encanto Valley Farm, if anyone in the area has feedback on them that would be great!) has 12x24 stalls. Another I saw had 12x20 stalls with individual cross-ties. I've also seen 9x18' stalls.

Could anyone give me the pros and cons to these stall sizes, and, if you have any, pictures of said stalls? I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the concept. I'll be going out to see the barns myself in a couple weeks (busy week ahead of me) but any feedback or info in the meantime would be great. :)

If the barn was ever used for foaling, that may explain the larger stalls. 12x24 is a pretty typical size for a foaling stall.

I can't imagine too many cons to a larger stall, unless maybe the horse needs to be on stall rest and there's too much room for moving around. They would probably be especially nice for larger warmbloods or drafts. Also if the place has limited turnout for any reason, the larger stalls would probably be nice.

I have 2 10x18.5 in my barn. Not much cons about it. You use more shavings but horse has plenty of room to move around without mashing everything in.

Unless you are paying for bedding, those are pros in my book. I boarded at a TB breeding/racing farm and we got the old broodmare barn with 12 x 20 stalls--cushy! I'd make sure there was turn out, though, to make sure those stalls don't take the place of outside time.

Haven't heard any negatives about Encanto or Morgan Carr, but others from the area might chime in.

I was working at a barn that had standard 10x10s and then some double sized stalls. It did cost a bit more to bed the stalls initially but I didn't find it true that I always went through more bedding. If the horse was a pig or paced in the stall, yes, i would go through more bedding. But if it was a tidy, well behaved horse in the stall, I actually found that I went through less bedding as it wasn't gettin as much time under foot.

No real downside, IMO

Nothing wrong with a roomier stall :)

When we build our own barn, our stalls are going to be at least 12x16. Like someone else said, you may use more bedding to bed them down initially, but unless your horse is a total pig, you generally end up using LESS bedding on a regular basis. I've had horses in stalls from 8x8 up to 20x20 and in my opinion, the bigger the better. Although the 20x20 was maybe a bit unreasonably large.

Sheila

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Originally Posted by furlong47

I can't imagine too many cons to a larger stall, unless maybe the horse needs to be on stall rest and there's too much room for moving around.

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Yeah, I have one 12x20 stall, and two 10x12 stalls, and when my younger mare was on stall rest, I had to use one of the smaller stalls because she could literally trot around in circles in the larger one. But most of the time, the extra space is nice to have.

Bigger sounds like a "pro", can't think of any cons.

My reiner is boarded in a 12x20 stall (former broodmare barn). He loves his stall and so do I. No downsides that I can see.

You can bed half or three quarters of it if you need to save on bedding. Love bigger boxes.

No cons to bigger... although if you have decent-sized horses, I prefer not to use anything with a dimension smaller than 10'. It seems like horses get cast more frequently in long, skinny stalls, no matter how ridiculously long the stall may be.

12 x 24 is a standard size for pipe stalls. My stalls are all 12 x 24 or 24 x 24. I would never go back to anything smaller. I just bed the fronts, where everyone lies down, so that cost isn't significantly higher than for a 12 x 12.

Thanks for the replies, all.

My main concern with the longer stalls is I don't know how injury prone a dumb horse might be in them, but it seems like you guys haven't had an issue with it. My favorite stall size has been 14x16 but that's also the biggest I've ever experienced. I agree that 9' might be too narrow for a horse to fully turn around in.

Does anyone have any pictures of their horses in their stalls?

I have a 16.1 hand Paint in a 10 x 10 at a boarding barn, and he seems to have no issues (he does have a connected paddock), and my horses at home are in 12 x 12's--and the 17 hander seems to lie down and get up easily every night. He even sprawls out and snores. I prefer 12 x 12 or bigger, but 12 x 20 is almost more room than a horse needs, frankly. I think I have some shots of my horses at home in my webshots link below.

We have a 12 x 24 that was built for a foaling stall but ended up for the most part just being used as a regular stall.

Wonderful stall if a horse could not be turned out for any reason, for putting two weanlings together, or just to give a horse more room.

It was also easier to clean as the horses would use one corner and then not walk all through it all day.

If I boarded I would love for my horse to be in a larger stall.

A 9x18 has more square feet (162 sf) than a 12x12 (144 sf) but if you had anything more than a pony or small horse I'd think it would be cramped turning or lying down across the short side. As for too much room during a lay-up in the bigger stalls, you could always use a corral panel or install metal channels across the 12x12 length and put in 2x6 or 2x8 boards to downsize it temporarily. If there's ever a need... Just a thought.

Horses LIKE more room. When you compare a stall to a horse's body size, and figure how many hours /day the horse is in there, it's AWFully restrictive. Not fun...

My boarded out mare, at 17h, had to be moved from her bigger stall to a regular sized one because she kept getting cast. Made quite a mess of herself 'til BO figured out the problem. Smaller stall, that she can still lay down in, equals no boo-boos!

Watching how horses get along in barns, those with open stalls where they can see others do better, except in stalls 12' x12' and smaller.
We think that is because, even standing in the middle, they feel the horses on the other stalls are way too close, especially if one is a grump that makes faces and runs at them and especially at feeding time.
The ones where those more shy/worrywart horses do better are 14' x 14' and bigger.

If the stalls partitions are solid, any size seems fine.

We have most boarding stables here with 12' x 12' stalls and 12' x 24' or longer runs off them.

There, they also tend to have more injuries and bent pens, horses just too close to each other, if bullys or bullied.

I made my stalls 14' x 14' and so the runs were 14' x 54'.
Well, we still had a problem.
A friend has 12' x 16' stalls with 16' wide runs and horses are much happier, enough room to get away from a neighbor running at them, without getting too close to the other neighbor, that may object to that also.

I changed my runs and now have 20' wide ones, is the way it turned out and is ok, since that is a quarantine and retiree barn, not really a working, younger horse barn.

The regular barn, once we are finished with it, will be 12' x 16' stalls, with the same size overhangs into 16' wide outside pens from each stall.

Our current 20' wide runs are really a bit overkill, not really necessary they be that wide, especially if you are short of space.

It is also important how you organize the flow of horses and workers in the whole barn.
That may make the barn quiet and peaceful, or a wild show every time you have a horse or person moving around setting everyone off.

Horses need quiet and peace, to feel they are not going to be bothered and at the same time that they can watch and keep an eye on things, not be isolated to sounds and smells mostly.

It is hard to say how others should build and manage barns, it depends on so much else that will go on with those barns and the horses in there.

Every barn I have built or worked in, there were always some things that needed to be changed as what we did changed, to make it better.
We learn as we go and see what works best.
It is hard to tell someone else what the need to do, without being there to see what is going on.