Do I build my own garden-hose manifold?
I built my own manifold using tees, nipples and ball valves. My supply to my manifold is 1” and all my valves are 3/4” I have several of these at my farm, my setup is fed from the top valve and the bottom valve can fill a 5-7 gallon bucket, if the weather is going to be really cold I will close off the top valve and open the bottom valve and drain the manifold the other valves are opened so they drain.
The reason I used ball valves is even when they freeze they will usually function when warmed up. I have some that were not drained and the brass cracked but the only time it leaks is when changing from on to off or on to off.
Standard valves or gate valves have always cracked and leaked more than the ball valves when it freezes or that has been my experience
The size of the manifold probably won’t be an issue because of the pipe size feeding the manifold in my case I can run a pair of rain birds to water the indoor arena at the same time and have enough pressure, but if the kids start washing a horse down in the shower stall there is insufficient pressure for the rain birds to overlap. But the automatic waterers in each stall always function and don’t use enough to affect any thing.
You may have similar results depending on your flows through the manifold.