Hi. On our property we have a tie-stall dairy barn that is a great size, but its all cemented up for the dairy cow tie stalls. My fiance and I now raise beef cattle and quarter horses. The property has sufficient pasture for the horses, but I have some broodmares that I want to eventually have in foaling stalls as the weather here in Nebraska isn't always welcoming to a foal in the winter. The tie-stalls are in the middle aisle, with walk through area (15') on either side of the tie-stalls. We currently use it for hay storage but I would like to eventually make it into a horse barn or even calving shed for the beef cattle. Any ideas? We've thought of taking out the cement, but there are good automatic waterers already installed and some useful ideas, we just aren't sure of how to make it horse friendly. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks!

The place we live on right now had a very similar set up as you described. It had an old milking barn that had head to head stantions with a raised area between them that was a feed area. I removed the stantions and the raised feed area. I filled the gutters and former feed area with gravel so that I had a level surface throughout the barn. I then used steel panels to make stalls. I liked the panesl because I could configure pens as I needed them. Sometimes there were no pens, sometimes there were just a few and somtimes the barn was full of pens. You can always configure your pens to make access to the waterers efficient.

We had 4 foot high concrete walls on that barn and the floor was 80% concrete. We used the barn for a couple of more years and then tore it down. The barn needed a new roof and I didn't want to spend that kind of money on a barn of its condition. Besides that, the concrete was a cold magnet and it was always colder inside the barn that it was outside. In ND, that isn't what a person wants in a barn. Milking barns also have low ceilings as a rule and many times are too low for horses.