by Lee Alley.
Find your Black Hills dream home at Rapid City Search .com

ACCESS: Five Mistakes to Avoid in Buying Horse Properties (Part-3)

Here are some tips for minimizing the risks of accident and property destruction from poorly planned "access" for your new hobby farm, ranchette or horse property.

Depending on the size of your trailer, you are going to need to be able to move it in and out of your property with ease, without putting fences or structures at risk, and without stopping in the roadway to work gates or try to maneuver so you can back in. Most properties that have enough room to accommodate horses can also be made trailer-friendly, simply by installing gates far enough up a driveway so you can pull in and open the gate without worrying about leaving your horse trailer blocking the road. Loop-around areas and pull through parking areas are ideal, and adequate trailer parking can help to prevent your trailer from accumulating excess wear. A covered concrete parking pad is a nice feature you can install later, so long as you’ve got room to maneuver. 

Don’t forget that the trailer you have now might not be the trailer you are always going to have. If you have a three-horse slant, for instance, and you’re planning to get a larger model with living quarters at some point, then you are going to need even more room to maneuver, and even more room to park your trailer a few years from now. 

Scrimping on trailer maneuvering and parking space prevents you from enjoying your property the way you want to, and it puts buildings, you and your horses at risk of being involved in accidents. 

You'll want to keep in mind, too, that even though you are planning during a mild season you will probably wind up trying to maneuver that truck/trailer combination some dark pre-dawn time when the snow is 10" deep and near white-out blizzard conditions.   Our Black Hills enjoy a banana-belt reputation, but we do see blizzards, just the same.  In Hermosa, Piedmont area it can be balmy clear, while often, just north of Piedmont all the way to Belle Fourche is a white-out blzzard with freezing ice on the roadway.  You may even want to go so far as to plan where you'll be throwing all that snow to, from the driveway path.  It's not much good to just cover other vehicles or pedestrian pathways with man made drifts.

Overhead power lines are common on farms.  If you might be ferrying high metal items in the back of your pickup, or large round bales on an elevated front-loader bucket, keep a thought on current or future overhead power or communication lines.

Here is a tip for planning the "access" issues for your new horse property.  The property is not just a static, inanimate possession.  Once up and going it will also be a living, evolving, dynamically functioning operating system.  Besides planning where "things" will be "placed,"  you should also plan were active operations will proceed.

Check out the next installment in this series, Part-IV, on location and siting.

1. Part-1: What Makes a "Horse Property?"
2. Part-2: Fences
3. Part-3: Access and Vehicle Maneuvering
4. Part-4: Location and Siting
5. Part-5: Planning