Need to pick your brains

[kellyd]

Well, since I now have two more horses (my brother's-he passed away last month), I now need to build a place for them to live. I had planned on fencing some acreage for horses - but not this soon. Now, I have no choice & gotta get it done. My other pastures/barn are being used by my own horses & there is no more room to add more to this group.

These two horses get along very well together.

I wish there was someone who designs horse pastures, fencing & shelters/footing/feeders/hay storage, water trough placement....someone who could give me guidance on doing it 'right' the first time!!

Sometimes the wind out here can almost blow a house away!!!!
This place was built in 2001, so there are no trees (yet) to block the wind or provide relief for the blistering heat.

It is important to me that feeding time is very easy (especially in the winter time) & can be done without entering the pasture & trapsing through muck.

I ran across this website for fencing

www.fencingsolutions.com

Any ideas, plans, experiences, etc. would help relieve my stess level & would be much appreciated.

[icehorse]

Hi Kelly,

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss.

I can send you pics of what I did at my place. We get blistering hot here and snow too. We also get the wind because there are no trees. In fact, when we moved here in August and put up our shelters, one of them blew out and over the fence! So I can give you some pointers on anchors. Depends on how much you want to spend, but I designed this one myself and it's working well. pm for more info and pics
Cynthia

[crum]

Actually there are many companies out there that do the planning of equestrian facilities. They don't tend to run cheap if you go all out, however if you are up front with most of them about your budget most of them will try to work with you. I don't have any companies I would recommend in the pacific northwest unfortunately but maybe someone else on here does have some recommendations. I could give recommendations for some if you are in the midwest though.

There are numerous books on these topics as well. One I've heard many good recommendations for is Horsekeeping on a Small Acreage: Designing and Managing Your Equine Facilities by Cherry Hill . It also looks like it is on sale on amazon right now.