Bedding with Stall Skins

[Jexa]

We just bought a farmette that I am super excited about and can’t wait to move the horses to in a couple months! The deluge of random questions is starting, though. :lol:

The stalls have Stall Skins, which I have no experience with. Ideally the plan is to only use the stalls to feed AM/PM grain so I’d like to keep bedding to a minimum, but I obviously don’t want to risk damage to the Stall Skins either. How tough are these things? Can I get away with a thin layer or do I need to bed relatively deep?

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[longlanefarm]

I put in stall skins in at my previous barn. The stalls were used for feeding but generally they were open 24/7. I did not notice any wear in 1.5 years that I had them, however, in my new barn I went with regular stall mats. I initially liked the concept of urine draining through the skins but after a while I started wondering what was growing under there!? Some spots seemed to stay wet and putting PDZ for the ammonia smell seemed like it would just clog the material and make matters worse down the road.

But if I bought a barn with them already in place, it would be a lot of time, effort, and $$ to replace, so I’d deal with them for now.

I wouldn’t bed too thin for sure. If you have a horse that paws they may not hold up like mine did.

[Dance_To_Oblivion]

I use straw. and it works pretty well

[moving_to_dc]

My skins are 18+ years old now. Stalls are only used for feeding, I typically have zero bedding in them. No holes, other than the ones worn in them prior to my purchasing the property in 2012. Those holes are right next to the where the previous owner had wall-mounted hay racks, and it appears the horses stood under them lots…

[Jexa]

Thanks all! Not too worried about urine collecting since they won’t spend enough time in there to do much - mostly I’m just curious how they’ll hold up to light traffic with minimal bedding. Sounds like they’re pretty tough, good to know!

[gypsymare]

4 years now with minimal wear. Every once in awhile the manure fork snags on a small hole but I don’t even see them. 2 of my horses wear drive in road studs all winter, too.

[MyDarkPassenger]

I love my Stall Savers, same concept but less expensive. There were a few growing pains due to poor drainage initially. My 2 messy horses have access to their 12x26 run in 24/7 with more time spent indoors during the heat and humidity. The one is quite active while inside as he enjoys the different views out of the multiple doors and windows.
I use pelleted bedding, the pee spots are minimal and the unshuffled poop picks up with a few shakes of the fork. We’re in the WNC mountains so there’s almost always enough humidity to keep dust down without wetting regularly. The one drawback I’ve experienced with the stall skin/pellet combo is dry pellets are slick when walking on so I do wet each bag before mixing in. This takes minutes and can be left to do other chores.

[Jexa]

Good to hear about the pellets - that’s the bedding I’d like to use, just a thin layer that’s been wet down. It’s in humid SC, plus they’re theoretically only going to spend a few minutes a day in there so I’m not worried about dust.