portable barns for job sites

[TaylorJohnson]

I would like to hear some of your ideas on portable or temporary logging barns for the job site. This is always an issue when you have a job that the horses will be on for more than a few days. Taylor Johnson

[Joshua Kingsley]

I had a job in ’07 that I kept the horses at and used my Gooseneck trailer as a barn for the 3 days they were there. I took some corral pannels and made a paddock that was about 200 ft in diameter. Not ideal but it worked in that situation. I should note that I was staying in the front of the trailer on an air matress so I was always around.

When I logged with my uncle we had a runin that was 8X16 that we skidded onto a flatbed and moved from job to job. he had two and they had a section of roof that could be connected to make a 20 foot wide barn. It worked to hold the team and anyting we wanted to keep dry.
Joshua

[Rick Alger]

I make rough hovels with tarps and any wood that’s handy. It takes less than half a day. I spike a frame to standing trees and nail the tarp down with button caps. I bed with straw. For turnout, if there is any open land, I use portable electric fence. During the moose rut, I string some rope around the outer limits of the hovel.

[dlskidmore]

A local place makes run-in sheds and small barns designed to be skidded, but that does require a specialized flatbed to move. I doubt their moving fee would be cost-effective.

[Joshua Kingsley]

I had another thought as to a solution that I have not tried but I think would work. They make portable stalls with wood sides that are 12 foot pannels. They link like a pin lock corral and I think a roof made from a heavy tarp could be an answer to a temporary barn. The pannels are hefty though they could be loaded into a stock trailer by a couple of people. They should last a long time and are fairily easy to move and set up.

just a thought

Joshua

[Scott G]

Usually dark timber and two-strand hot wire (turbo rope) works for me.

The main issue we have is wind and that is what seems to affect the horses the most.

I have to admit, however, that Stockyards Supply has started selling a three-sided shelter that is based on porta panels with a roof that looks pretty handy. I thought putting some pressure treated plywood sides on it fastened with U-bolts to the panels would work pretty slick.

My biggest issue would be to anchor it so it doesn’t end up in Nebraska with the type of winds we have.

Hell Taylor, maybe if the wind blew hard enough it would make it to your place in Wisconsin and you’d be all set! 😀

[dlskidmore]

Last time we tied down a tent in 103 MPH winds, the ridge pole snapped under the pressure, but ours at least didn’t just flop over or fly away like the rest of the division.

Assuming your structural members are sturdy, which they should be to resist the occasional horse bump, a pair of compression lines running diagonal across the rectangular shelter, coming down at 45 degrees to the ground, should hold fast. You might have to educate the horses about stakes of any are inside the pen area, perhaps making them much longer than necessary, and use a heavy, highly visible rope? If stakes and rope are too risky, you’ll just have to add a solid compression member at an angle on each upright, and run the stresses the other way around the structure.

[Ira]

I used to build what I called “baler twine barns”. 🙂 Just a tarp strung over some poles cut on site. I tied the poles into the trees and hung the tarp over them. I never had to worry about high winds but they did stand up to some fairly heavy snow loads occaisionly. When the job was done I could cut the twine, drop the poles on the ground so that nothing was left connected to the trees, fold up the tarp and use it on the next job

[TaylorJohnson]

Well I have done like Rick and Ira and made a rough shelter out of tarps and what I could find as far a polls go. I have thought of some type of barn or should I say barn design that you could make with a set plan and the hardware ( bolts, nuts, washers or large leg bolts) taken from job to job. With some wood butchering and a few sheets of ply wood you would have a pretty nice barn on site. There is such a fine line to be efficient though , It all has to come together very fast in order to get to work. I can do a little wood butchering but am not a carpenter . Every thing would have to fit in the bed of a truck as to not have to make a special trip. The ply wood would last more than one job but would have to be replaced eventually.
I have used a trailer but with our night to day temp changes up here they sweat to bad having the metal roof plus they always end up knocking stuff around a lot.
I have no set thing in my mind just some scatted thoughts but would like to come up with something easy . One more thing to consider is who will see the horse set up people are not always understanding of animals and what they need . If it does not look like Martha Stewart designed it it is not good enough . The main time my horses want a shelter is in the heat not rain or snow. Taylor Johnson

[Ira]

In the summer I just used an overhead picket line. Just set the horses back in the woods where they are surrounded by trees. So that there is shade all day long.

[Gabe Ayers]

Doing no more than you have to if it is a small job, seems to be the pattern we have had to adopt. If you are going to be there a while, say over 10 acres of mature Appalachian hardwood then some shelter may be appropriate.

We were on a job in the public woods (national forests) once and camped down at the end of a dead end road built to access a clear cut on an adjoining piece. The site was about 50 acres of marked timber. It was at a crossroads of state roads through the NF. It had been a negotiated sale based on the special provision of the site having a high visual sensitivity, because so much traffic used these roads. I guess we were just a beauty ring used to hide clear cuts from the public, but I digress…

We have always liked to give the horses as much liberty when not working as possible, so a portable electric fence and a crude black plastic pipe diverting water from a stream course to a trough was about it. There were always trees and some natural shade. We had our trailers on site and when cold we would put them on them, especially in freezing rain conditions.

One day we had some unexpected and uninvited visitors that came through for a Sunday drive and reported us to the local authorities for animal abuse. The local deputy came up the next working day and watched us a couple of hours and said this is crazy, you treat those animals very well. I asked what we should do? He said the law required that when more than over night camping that the horses needed a three sided structure. So we built a couple of standing stalls with a roof and two sides and counted it as three. The deputy said we were cool and that we would hear no more from those SPCA folks. I told him to send them up, they could watch us work anytime they wanted. We never heard anything from them again.

So I guess the point is lots of liberty and maybe some shelter of any kind will work.

I have known guys that had welded metal standing stalls they set off th back of the log truck with knuckleboom. But it is a matter of doing the work and everyone will find their own system that suits them. The culture of using the animals is so precious, the hardware and electric fence is just stuff to practice that culture.

~

[dlskidmore]

What about something that unfolds off the side of the trailer? An awning and a couple side panels?

[TaylorJohnson]

I do use an electric fence plastic polls , it is powered by a car battery ( I have found this style fencer better than the solar, just tougher ) . We have flies up here that draw blood when they bite a horse or man and they need some place to get away from them. They seem to stay away from a structure with ever three sides . Those flies can give ya some pain I tell ya.
The name of the game logging is efficiency and that goes for every thing you do and every move you make. I am always looking to improve on what I do and be efficient at it,,,, some days I may as well be trying to break the moon with a sling shoot 🙂 but some days I can put on one hell of a log show,, or at least me and the boys think so 🙂 ( boys being Mark and Dan ) .
I want to get to were I can be set up to stay a couple of weeks in one half of a day ,, well I can now I just want to improve on it . The problem I have with the tarp set ups is snow load in the winter and the horse jacking with them when they can get to them. I just think I could improve my rhythm when it comes to setting up for the horses in the bush. Taylor Johnson

[Carl Russell]

Taylor, I agree with your concept. Just remember that efficiency is long term too. Sometimes trying to be “efficient” can lead to cutting corners, which ends up not being very efficient at all.

My point is that a well-built portable barn could take some time to design and build, but in the long run would be a great benefit to your operation.

I chose to buy a trailer and move my horses to and from the job each day. I just can’t travel to the job seven days a week any more, and the trailer is the most efficient way for me now.

However, back in the day I did the whole pole and tarp thing, and portable fence.

Although I never built it, I had put together a design using 4×4’s and 3/4″ plywood that could be taken apart in panels. It would measure 8’x12′ with 2 standing stalls and an equipment/hay/workspace on one end. I erred on the side of heavy so that it could hold up to the “playfulness” of my horses. I did save some on the roof, having poles for ridge and rafters, and a tarp for roofing, that just seemed to be hard to build a panel for a roof that I could move and assemble.

I really think you could get this done for a few hundred buck, and you should be able to put it together by yourself in half a day pretty reasonably, and it would look like you had put some thought into it, so visitors would appreciate it. This is the kind of thing that if it is built heavy enough, and designed so you can handle it and care for it, it should last a long time and provide good benefit.

Carl

[TaylorJohnson]

Carl that is just the type of thing I am thinking about . Efficients is the key but like you said not corner cutting efficient like a good watch is what I am talking. I know pretty much what I ultimately want for a mobile operation but what I want and what I can afford are to different things right now. Work with what you got . It is looking up in the log markets up here so it might not be far off with what I want to get for a mobile riggens in the future . Taylor Johnson

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