Essential Horse Barn Maintenance Tips for the New Horse Owner

So, you bought a horse (or horses). Congratulations! Whether you’re planning to use your horses for work, competition, pleasure, or some mixture of these, owning a horse can be an amazingly rewarding experience. Horses are more than just pets, farmhands, or luxury items; horses can truly become life-long companions. Connecting with your horse over a pleasant ride helps you reconnect with nature, gain some great outdoor exercise, reduce stress, and also enjoy other rewarding benefits.

But make no mistake. Having your own horse(s) entails more than just going for a romantic trot through picturesque scenery whenever you feel like it. Horse ownership is a big commitment, and it requires a significant amount of effort and dedication on your part. Not only do you get to ride the horse, but you also get to feed the horse, bring it water, rake hay, muck stalls, groom the horse, shoe the horse, lift and position the saddle … you get the idea.

How to Maintain Your Horse Barn

Assuming you don’t board your horse at an offsite stable, one of the most important things you can do to keep your horse healthy and safe is to make sure your horse barn stays properly maintained. Here are a few good tips that a new horse owner – in fact, any horse owner – should keep in mind:

Clean Those Stalls Daily

This one you probably already know, but it bears stating here. Put mucking right up there with feeding and watering on your daily barn chore list. Leaving muck in the stall presents a slipping hazard for your horse, and it also gives bacteria and disease more of a foothold. Daily mucking is essential to healthy horse hygiene.

Maintain Proper Supplies and Storage of Hay and Horse Feed

Horses don’t need unlimited access to grain – that kind of buffet isn’t good for horses. Keep feed in secure bins that horses can’t get to on their own. However, you should keep hay and grass in front of your horses all day long. While horses don’t need to overstuff themselves on grain, they do require lots of roughage to keep themselves healthy. Horses’ intestinal tracts are built for constant grazing! You also need to organize all your food supplies within your barn such that they’re properly stored and protected.

Pest Prevention

All that hay and horse feed is a natural attraction to rodents and other pests. Not only can these pests snack on your food supplies, but they can also introduce fleas, disease, and other headaches. One of the best things you can do to be proactive about preventing pests from gaining a foothold is to choose a stable facility for your horses that’s harder for pests to access. Rats are creative and persistent, and can get into almost any wooden barn. A well-engineered metal barn, on the other hand, is much harder for rats and other pests to penetrate.

Make sure you’re cleaning the stalls on a daily basis, and store grains in sealed metal containers that are ideally kept off of the floor. Another proactive tip for ongoing pest control is to keep a couple of barn cats around. It’s important to provide adequate space and food so your barn cats will be happy and healthy, but this is a small investment that should more than pay for itself – cats are very effective rodent predators! To learn more about caring for barn cats and using them to your advantage around the stable or homestead, check out this helpful article.

Keep the Air Moving

Proper barn ventilation is another key for your horses’ respiratory health. Installing ceiling or exhaust fans is a great way to pull out excessive heat, dust, and moisture. This will help to keep mold growth at bay, and it will also help prevent excessive ammonia buildup in the air around the stalls. Leave vents and the upper section of your double Dutch barn doors open during the day, so fresh air can enter and replace the stale air that’s being drawn out.

Another Good Tip: Choose the Right Type of Barn for Your Horse

While maintaining your horse barn is important, it’s even more important to choose the right kind of barn for your horse in the first place. Wooden barns have been around for generations, but they don’t actually provide the best protection from the threats of weather and pests, AND they require a lot of upkeep. A modern horse owner like yourself doesn’t want to have to spend a lot of time or money in barn maintenance. And wouldn’t it also be nice to have a horse barn that’s easily expandable and adaptable as your needs grow or change?

A prefab metal horse barn is a better choice for many reasons. First of all, they’re easier to clean and require less maintenance than pole barns or stick-builds. Steel barns don’t rot like wood, and they provide better protection from anything Mother Nature has to throw at you, including wind, rain, snow, and lightning. Plus, steel isn’t susceptible to termites, rodents, or other pests, and it won’t harbor mold or mildew. Steel also provides much better fire protection than wood. The list of advantages that pre-engineered metal horse barns carry over wooden barns is almost endless!

Get the Best Horse Barns from Carport Central!

Carport Central can help you custom design a metal barn that is much more functional and longer-lasting than any stick-build. Our structures are both rugged and versatile, and they’re fully customizable according to your needs and preferences. And if you need more than just a horse barn, Carport Central has you covered! We can provide everything from stables to barns with extended lean-tos, and from stand-alone hay barns to full-sized indoor riding arenas.

In fact, you have the ability to design your own custom metal barn or other steel building from the comfort of your couch with our state-of-the-art online 3D Building Designer. It’s easy to use, and allows you to choose your own horse barn design and select from a range of available customizations including choice of roof style, colors, certification for wind and snow loads, and much more! Our designer also provides a very accurate estimate of horse barn prices that are adjusted in real time as you add or subtract custom options.

And speaking of cost, our metal barn prices are very competitive when compared with prices of comparable wooden buildings. Thanks to the strength and fire-resistance of our steel structures, you’ll probably pay less for insurance premiums, too. Oh, and did we mention? We include delivery and installation with your standard purchase!

Of course, Carport Central also has a full team of live humans who are always happy to answer any of your specific questions. Our expert staff is friendly and knowledgeable, not just about metal horse barns, but about any of your steel structure needs. We’ll help you through the whole process, and will be here to walk with you every step of the way. You can reach out to us online, or just pick up the phone and give us a call at (980) 321-9898 and let’s get started on getting you the horse barn of your dreams today!