We’ve got 4 horses in a large paddock with 2 loafing sheds. 3 of the 4 are piggy and like to pee and poop in the barn rather than out of the barn. We’re in the mountains so have a mixture of sand/rock/dirt. One side of each loafing shed is pretty gross and stays wet and stinky all the time. I pick out the poop and wet spots daily or every other day. I also use wood shavings where the floor is wet. I’m not making progress. I’ve thought about putting in stall mats just to make a surface that I can completely clean, but I somehow don’t think that’s really going to be my best solution. I’ve read in some of the other posts about pelleted bedding - I’ll have to track that down. Any other ideas? (BTW - I know this is NOT a drainage issue and I cannot move the loafing sheds around the paddock.)
Thanks!
An interesting thing happened when our previous boarding barn filled our shed with that recycled asphalt stuff–the horses stopped using it as a toilet. I have no idea why. It did smell for awhile, but the horses still hung out in there, so the smell wasn’t driving them out. I thought it was a nice surface…packed well, drained, and was heavy enough to not walk away. And I think that stuff is free/cheap from the highway department. Might be worth a shot?
Otherwise, I have always liked the idea of a wood grid in a shed. Fill the gaps with fill that will drain and you have a pretty permanent surface that won’t get slick like mats.
I would be loathe to put something like pellets in there. They’ll soak everything up, sure, but then just turn into a gross sopping mess that you’ve have to cart out of there. Ick.
Actually, the mats might work just on the premise that most horses don’t like to pee on a hard surface because of the splashback… They like peeing there because you keep adding bedding and it’s a soft spot. And because horses live to annoy us, sometimes :lol:
Make a pile of old bedding about 40-50 feet from the run-in, do something to make the run-in floor hard and the horses will go outside to pee. they still might poop inside and if you leave the poop sit I would guess they might go to peeing on it. so clean had floor is needed.
chicamuxen
Don’t use limestone - it holds the pee smell. I have a pile of cedar sawdust outside and my mare uses a corner of that - she sleeps on the other side.
You have my sympathy. My two each have a stall with a paddock, and then a turn out area that they have access to during the day. The floor of the stalls is plain old dirt (not clay). The gelding is a real slob. They both poop and pee in their stalls I want to put in the wood grid and fill with stone dust or whatever I can get out here in CA. But this is low on our list of new home owner priorities at this point. But I will be happy to scoop and down to a “floor” instead of delve to china in my attempts to separate the smelly mess from the dirt that it has saturated! And I hope to put in enough “stuff” under the wood grid so that we have very good drainage!
We did do mats. Hasn’t deterred them from using it as the toilet, but it is so much easier to clean. I just use a plastic winter shovel. Ours have been in the one shed 8 years and still working well
[QUOTE=Simkie;7771513]
An interesting thing happened when our previous boarding barn filled our shed with that recycled asphalt stuff–the horses stopped using it as a toilet. I have no idea why. It did smell for awhile, but the horses still hung out in there, so the smell wasn’t driving them out. I thought it was a nice surface…packed well, drained, and was heavy enough to not walk away. And I think that stuff is free/cheap from the highway department. Might be worth a shot?
Otherwise, I have always liked the idea of a wood grid in a shed. Fill the gaps with fill that will drain and you have a pretty permanent surface that won’t get slick like mats.
I would be loathe to put something like pellets in there. They’ll soak everything up, sure, but then just turn into a gross sopping mess that you’ve have to cart out of there. Ick.[/QUOTE]
Is asphalt safe? If it’s free you’d think more horse people would grab it up for mud areas.
[QUOTE=horsetales;7774129]
We did do mats. Hasn’t deterred them from using it as the toilet, but it is so much easier to clean. I just use a plastic winter shovel. Ours have been in the one shed 8 years and still working well[/QUOTE]
I have mats as well. Mine poop in the sheds but they don’t pee in them much unless they get extra hay in there, and then it becomes the favorite pee spot by everyone.
Mats are much easier to clean…if it gets very wet (in spring, not from pee), I do sometimes put pellets in, but yes, you have to take them out…one more job. I would not put pellets on a dirt floor; they will just be harder to get out.
[QUOTE=AmarachAcres;7774932]
Is asphalt safe? If it’s free you’d think more horse people would grab it up for mud areas.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t want to feed directly off of it, but I think it’s safe for general use. I did see it used quite a bit for mud areas in Colorado.
[QUOTE=AmarachAcres;7774932]
Is asphalt safe? If it’s free you’d think more horse people would grab it up for mud areas.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn’t feed on it either, but it’s probably safe for them to walk on, etc. It’s not free all the time or in all areas, it depends. Also can depend on whether you know the right people or can take it at the right time or if you’re in the right area. They’re not going to go out of their way to truck it to you, but if you happen to be on the route they’re taking you might get a great deal. A lot of places are recycling their grindings more than than they used to. One of our major customers is using them for shouldering a big job this year, and I’m pretty sure they can re-use a certain percentage when making new asphalt.
Do you find that it stays wet and smelly under the mat now, or is it more just poop cleaning and they pee outside more often?
