Horse Stall Converstion

I know there are plenty of threads already on stall conversions, but I've read through many and had a few more questions.

My barn has 4 stall....nice stalls. They have the sliding stall doors with wood on the bottom and vertical bars on the top.

I have thought of a few options:

1. Slide the stalls open and reframe a door with hardware cloth and 2x4s
2. Continue using the sliding feature, but wrap it in hardware cloth.

My only concerns are that they are small openings where the stall sliders meet the posts. Not sure how I could add hardware cloth and still use the doors.

Has anyone done a conversion with similar stalls or have any pics or ideas?

What is the surrounding building like? Is it secure?

Yes, it's very secure. The stalls have dirt floors...very compacted I might add and no openings near the bottom. The barn is only 4 years old. I know I'll need to add something to the top of the stall to keep barn kitties, and other potential animals from coming in, but since it is so secure we can control what comes in and out fairly well.

One of the stalls (that we will be using) has a sliding window to the exterior of the barn. My ideas was to build a portable (maybe something on wheel) enclosed run that would sit up against the outside of the barn and allow the hens to go in and out of the stall as they please. Have any of you seen or done this before?

I think you will be very happy with your stall conversions. So easy to keep clean, especially if you install poop boards and the birds are very comfortable. I wish I had thought to search BYC for stall conversions when we were converting ours, but so far we are really happy with what we have come up with.

For the doors, we attached the hardware cloth on the outside of the stall, trimming it to accommodate the hinges and latch. The hardware cloth prevents the top from being opened now.

Our floors are well compacted, but that didn’t deter mice and the occasional gopher around here. We dug our floors down a few inches, buried hardware cloth and cemented the perimeter so that nothing can burrow in. Otherwise the mice especially did have tunnels, which who knows what could use to get in.

We temporarily solved the problem of the space between the door and the stall by wedging it with a piece of wood. We will be installing either wood held in place by rebar to keep the doors traveling snugly or guide rollers, or maybe I can find a better solution searching BYC. Gonna have to do that!