I just find that I have to bed so deep even with mats due to having large thin skinned beasts that it would make more sense/save $ if there was a “low tech” base of gravel/clay/sand what ever provides proper drainage to the “earth” underneath the same amount of shavings, plus I wouldn’t have to strip the old not soiled but “musty dusty broken down” shavings out. If I don’t bed deep they get hock sores and mix in their plentiful pee with the rest of the stall so I actually toss out less on a daily basis and figure what I spend on deep shavings I save on ointments and thrush treatments…thoughts?
It’s a trade off in maintenance work and expense, depending on what’s feasible with your soil and drainage. I’ve always bedded dirt floors with a lot of shavings. And depending on the horse, you can get some holes dug pretty quickly that will need periodic leveling.
I prefer rubber mats and deep bedding, personally. It isn’t an either/or. I never have to strip stalls, I just keep them cleaned very well daily. I strip them maybe once a year completely.
I’ll agree with you, although in most instances I think they are a necessary evil.
Gravel, clay, sand are still subject to digging. Mats placed over a well tamped floor will really help. Well cleaned stalls done on a daily basis shouldn’t require total bedding replacement. Simply add bedding in an amount equal to that removed.
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It’s a trade off in maintenance work and expense, depending on what’s feasible with your soil and drainage. I’ve always bedded dirt floors with a lot of shavings. And depending on the horse, you can get some holes dug pretty quickly that will need periodic leveling.[/QUOTE]
This is my thinking as well.
I’m not going to lie, I hate mats. I’d prefer a dirt floor any day. But the trade off is not having to maintain the floor.
In my case, my soil has terrible drainage. I’d have to do a lot more improvement and maintenance to my stall floors to use them without mats and not have damage on a regular basis.
My hate for rubber mats is that I seem to hold my pitchfork at the exact angle that causes it to find any and all mat seams, no matter how level and nice they are. So annoying.
Otherwise I like them because they give a nice level stall with out worry of the base needing repair or the base getting stirred into the bedding.
I put them in my last stall (the horse that pees the most so I was using the natural drainage theory) when my chickens went crazy one day and dug huge holes down into the base and stirred stone into the bedding.
On the good side. In the spring when that corner of the barn is wet, the stall is nice and dry. No need to add extra bedding and strip out the soaked bedding from the ground water soaking up.
I’d never have stalls without rubber mats,been the gravel, sand & clay routine endup re doing yearly. Did gravel then sand over top packed it down tight put rubber mats over top. Stalls are still nice and level and haven’t had to re do it in 6 years.
Can’t get all the pee up with dirt floored stall,and spent a lot $$ on bedding, I’v saved a lot on bedding by going to rubber mats. Only put enough to bedding to cover mats. Never an issue with hock sores either,stalls stay cleaner bedding doesn’t get churned up with gravel and sand.
I hate them with a passion, but only because it always seems they shift and get manure and pee under them, and because i keep breaking my pitchforks on them! I am using wood floors in my barn. It is what I grew up using, and i find they are nicer on the joints than concrete.
I also don’t like mats, but find they are a necessary evil on stone, dirt or clay floors.
That said, my barn has a double layer pressure treated wood floor with stone for drainage underneath. Pee runs right out. Horses don’t get stiff. Love them.
Having had clay floors, having mats is much easier. Much less maintenance keeping things flat plus the horses stay cleaner! The mats with little holes in them (almost like a grid) are soon nice, even with straw.
In my years as a stall cleaner we had dirt floors that were topped with gravel. We found it depended on the horse and the amount of urine they produced. Some stalls were clean and dry and some had a lake in the " pee hole" area that needed to be dug and and re-leveled very often.
Sounds like you would be better off letting them come and go as they please instead of confining them to a stall. mats would be softer that dirt/gravel floor.
I spent 20 years without mats and the past 10 years with mats and I definitely prefer the mats. They require a lot less maintenance and bedding and just seem so much cleaner overall. Also, getting rid of the mats might not get rid of the hock sores. I only have one horse that has had trouble with hock sores and he had them on the dirt floors and on the mats – I have to use a lot of bedding for him no matter what.
My mats were cut to fit very tight and I have only had bedding get under them twice. Both times, I pulled them up, cleaned under them and put them back down and never had a problem again. Overall, I personally think they are so much easier.
Interesting to hear all of your opinions. My boy doesn’t “soil” a whole lot of shavings but tends to push them around a lot so they wind up sort of breaking down into dust and smelling mildewy after a bit so I throw out more “old” shavings from his stall than “dirty” my thought was the older smaller stuff would sort of find it’s way to the bottom act as a base naturally break down with out the “funky” phase
I’ve been doing a lot of research into stall mats since we are in the process of buying a farm that has dirt floors in the stalls. I’ve boarded at many barns with mats and I don’t like them. I go through way more bedding than on dirt floors, and I have to bed deep to keep hock sores away. But I do like the levelness… so what I found that seems to be a good compromise are Stall Skins/Stall Savers.
You basically level the dirt, put in a layer of gravel for drainage (and a pee hole filled with gravel if your dirt doesn’t drain well) and then you put the stall skins over it. They are rubber-like, are attached to the stall walls a few inches above the floor so they don’t shift around, and they DRAIN so the urine runs into the dirt. People I’ve talked to say they go through a LOT less bedding and they love them. So that is the route I’m going. I’ll probably still have to bed fairly deep to keep the hock sores at bay, but at least I won’t be going through a bag of shavings per day thanks to the urine puddling on the mats.
