Grills or no grills between stalls?

New here and need some more good opinions!

I have been riding for the past 20 years, but have never kept horses on my own property. I am finally building my long-awaited dream barn and am now trying to decide on some last details.

I have room for 7 12x12 stalls (all side-by-side) that I would like to eventually finish all the same or very similarly. For now, I have funds to complete 2 stalls. We've decided on using stall kits (we assemble) with the metal grills on the top portion of the walls and sliding door. The grills will deffinitely be used all the way across the front and back walls, but I would like to hear opinions on whether to use them between the stalls or to leave a solid wall of 2x8's. Also, would you recomend swing out feeders on top or just feeding from the ground?

Other info about our barn: It is very open- stalls are located between the aisleway and the open storage/ riding area, so airflow is very good. In the near future we will be keeping 1-3 family horses. Farther out, we may get into some boarding. We have plenty of pasture and all horses will primarily be turned out. I will have to utilize an unexperienced "horse-sitter", but not often.

Thanks ahead for the feedback!

Grills between stalls are great if you know all your horses get along fine.

Otherwise they are problem.

I think their stalls should be some place they can be safe and comfortable. If the horse in the next stall is always biting at them or making faces that kind of removes that safe and comfortable feeling.


I prefer to feed from the ground.
Having said that I have three horses with three different feeding set ups.
One is fed from the ground.
One has a standard corner feeder.
One has a feed bucket with a ring so feed can not be tossed around their stall.

I started them all using a floor tub.

Same with hay.

One can be fed from the ground no problem.
One immediately pees and manures on her hay and then has a snit fit that her food is dirty.
One eats so fast and is obese so his hay is put in a small hole hay bag just so it lasts him more than five minutes.

We have a mixture where I board. Two stalls have boards all the way up as they housed studs at some point in time supposedly. 3 stalls are open, they are boarded up to the point where you could add a grill but just left open and 2 have stalls have grills all the way around.

You have to be careful with this setup as with the open stalls a horse can easily lean over and chomp his neighbor one and a horse could also try jumping out. The barn is full of laid-back, whatever horses for the most part so it works well and the few horses that have the open stalls, LOVE them. My horse has an open stall in a corner where the two rows of stalls intersect. He loves that he stick his head over the wall on 3 sides and see the entire barn.

All the horses are fed on the ground. Matted stalls and we don't put shavings in one corner, that's where the hay is tossed. Those who get grain have rubber pans. We have all day turnout so stalls are cleaned and waiting with dinner when the horses get brought in, so you have to make sure the rubber pans are far enough into the stall or the horses stop with their butts still hanging out in the aisle so you can't shut the stall doors.

I realize with a kit, you don't have this option, but in case someone else is reading this that wants to build from scratch, we came up with a solution that uses both on each side wall. I was worried about my barn being very dark and loss of ventilation if we built solid walls all the way up between stalls. But I was also concerned that a couple of my horses get grouchy when in for any length of time, and I didn't want them tormenting their neighbors. So we built each of ours to have a solid wall for about 4 feet out at the back of each wall, and the rest is heavy grade livestock panel. I'll attach a picture because I can't explain it well. We feed ours out of corner feeders that are placed in the back, where the solid wall section is, so they cannot see or bother each other at feeding time, so there is no stress from that. We simply put the hay on the ground under the feeder. And if the horse wants to be left alone, all they have to do is retreat to the back of the stall, and there is a wall, if they want to visit, they come to the front. We don't have fronts on ours at all. They are open for the horses to hang their heads over into the aisle if they chose. Sorry the picture isn't good, I didn't realize I didn't have a single picture of the half walls anywhere, lol.

My barn has bars between each stall so that the horses can see each other, but between two stalls that share a wall there is plywood so that they can't get at each other. You could leave the stall grills there and if they end up not getting along, just put up a piece of plywood between them so they can't see each other.