Buying A Home
Dear Community,

Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.

If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.

Thank you.

Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.

Horse farm next to house

We are interested in a house in a rural subdivision. Our neighbors have a hobby horse farm - it appears in good condition and as someone who works in the horse industry, I'm not bothered in the slightest - I've been around the look and the smell and the feel my whole life.

 

My husband, though, claims a bad sense of smell and may be glamored by the house and not looking at the fact that in the summer the smell of manure is perhaps more oppressive, and the flies know no boundaries. 

 

Anyone live near a hobby farm and can paint a good picture, perhaps someone not so literally "in the environment/desensitized" like I am?

image the Badlands, 2003

Re: Horse farm next to house

  • I don't, but my aunt lives in a house where her back yard directly borders a horse farm. As in, the fence that the horses are enclosed in comes right up to the back of her property. The horses' owner is very nice and my little cousins go up to the fence and pet the horses and feed them carrots all the time. It's pretty adorable.
  • Same as Geekette, but an uncle lives next to some horses (maybe 6?).  The lots are necessarily bigger there, so it's at least 200 feet to the lot line and completely unnoticeable.  Within 200 feet of my home I have 10 other houses, so I think I'd prefer the horses if I didn't have to commute.
  • I grew up in PA farm country so I would probably find it idyllic...down here near DC the horse country is way more than I can afford. But to answer your question, I don't think it would be that different from living near a farm with other livestock like cows or sheep (actually, wouldn't it be less pervasive because they don't keep horses in giant herds?). The downsides I remember most about farmland are that 1) it's dusty, and everything you touch (including the animals) feels like it needs a bath, and 2) the smell is inescapable. On the days the fields are being fertilized the entire outdoors has that awkward smell of a bathroom where someone recently flushed a giant nameless load. But I was kind of used to it...to me the benefits of living near farmland (the fresh air and *not* looking at endless homes) outweigh dealing with the smell for a few days.
    Lilypie First Birthday tickers
  • I grew up living directly behind horses, as in we could touch them from out property. I didn't think it was that bad and I can not remember any bugs but I do know that it did smell a couple of times and in my town if you smell them at all you can call the board of health and they will come down and fix the problem, I mean we never called but its good to know they regulate it so I would check with the tows board of health department but as long as they take care of their animals you should be fine. 
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • Can you ask around and make sure they have their manure regularly picked up and that they maintain their property in the summer (ie: picking up the pastures reguarly, etc)?

    I'd live next to a horse farm anyday, but I'm also a horse person and we looked at a few properties with horse facilities ourselves.

  • We're facing similar problems in our rural home search except there are chicken houses all over the place and pretty hard to avoid being downwind of them. And if it's not chickens, it's cows or horses...sometimes donkeys, goats or sheep.

    I lived on a farm with cows in high school and I remember having a lot of bugs (but it was also the first time I lived out in the country).  I don't currently live near any livestock, but we still get tons of flies in the summer...I think it comes with the territory of living in the country.  Most rural places with livestock are going to smell pretty bad in the summer - whether it's horses, cows, chickens, etc.  I, personally, would prefer horses because IMO they tend to be cleaner than cows or chickens and therefore less smelly. 

    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • imagegeekette2010:
    I don't, but my aunt lives in a house where her back yard directly borders a horse farm. As in, the fence that the horses are enclosed in comes right up to the back of her property. The horses' owner is very nice and my little cousins go up to the fence and pet the horses and feed them carrots all the time. It's pretty adorable.

    This sounds exatctly like my in-laws house. Their yard backs up to the very back of the pasture where the horses graze and the barn is further uphill, so my in-laws are downwind from the majority of the farm. The owners must do a really good job taking care of the horses and cleaning the property, because I have never noticed any strong odors or an excessive amount of bugs, even during the hottest time of year. There are 5 horses on the farm though, so maybe that makes a difference.

  • imagegeekette2010:
    I don't, but my aunt lives in a house where her back yard directly borders a horse farm. As in, the fence that the horses are enclosed in comes right up to the back of her property. The horses' owner is very nice and my little cousins go up to the fence and pet the horses and feed them carrots all the time. It's pretty adorable.

    This sounds exatctly like my in-laws house. Their yard backs up to the very back of the pasture where the horses graze and the barn is further uphill, so my in-laws are downwind from the majority of the farm. The owners must do a really good job taking care of the horses and cleaning the property, because I have never noticed any strong odors or an excessive amount of bugs, even during the hottest time of year. There are 5 horses on the farm though, so maybe that makes a difference.

  • We live in a guest house on my parents property. My front door is less than 100' from our 6 Clyds. We love it. the flies do get a little bad towards the end of summer, but not unbarable. to be honest I never  notice the smell. Their stalls are cleaned daily so that may have something to do with it.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format bbhtml
  • How big is the pasture?  If it's a tiny pasture with several horses on it, the smell might get bad just from the horsey density.  If it's a nice big pasture with only a few horses on it and they take care of it, I wouldn't worry about it too much.  Honestly, I'd rather have a pasture than three or four houses that close to me.
    Image and video hosting by TinyPic


    BabyFetus Ticker

    VOTE on my Name List

  • palmloyalpalmloyal member
    First Comment
    edited April 2014
    Did you ever purchase the property near the horses? How did it work out? I am building a home next to a Mare farm.
  • palmloyal said:
    Did you ever purchase the property near the horses? How did it work out? I am building a home next to a Mare farm.
    This thread is over THREE years old.  OP hasn't been active in quite some time.  
  • I grew up in a similar sounding place: a subdivision but it borders a cow farm. Some days you catch manure smells through the wind and some days are stronger than others. I don't recall having a fly problem. The smell never bothered me.
Sign In or Register to comment.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards