Building a floor in an existing stall?

[12mints]

Has anyone done it?

My horse’s stall floor is currently a dirt hole, which would be fine if the barn manager wasn’t of the “skimp on shavings” mentality. My horse is literally laying on rocks and I can’t keep him clean with this dirt/shavings mixture. I’m done with this. I don’t believe in keeping a horse in a stall I wouldn’t spend the night in :no:

If I were to build a proper floor in his stall, what are my options? Has anyone tried SoftStall? Or that honeycomb pattern grid thing? Do those have to be professionally installed? I want him to be safe and comfortable in his stall!

[Simkie]

First, you’re going to need a base, regardless of what you put on top. That will be lime screenings or stone dust or decomposed granite or whatever product is similar that you have available locally. You don’t post where you are–this stuff is all very regional. You’ll put that in, level, and compact with a vibrating plate tamper.

Once you’ve got that, then you can put in stall mats or whatever else you want.

Finding someone to professionally install just one stall might be a little tough. Doing it yourself is doable but isn’t a whole lot of fun.

[12mints]

I’m in New England, are those things hard to come by here?

[Simkie]

Nope. Call up your local quarry. I think that’s “stone dust” area? You might ask around and see if anyone else your barn is interested in fixing up their stall at the same time, so you can split a load of rock and the rental cost of the tamper.

[12mints]

Great idea! Thanks for the help!

[Hermein]

I once had a barn in which the previous owner had put down wooden floors in the stalls. I liked that so well that I’ll do that with my new barn.

I’ll get the underlying dg as level as possible as a first step. Then, I’ll put down treated 4x4 posts of lengths to reach from wall-to-wall every 3 ft or so. On top of that, I’ll lay 2 by* planks U[/U] going in the cross direction to the 4x4s. I’ll have to screw them down on top of the 4x4s so that I can have a small gap for the urine to drain that hasn’t been absorbed by the shavings. I could put down mats on top of the planks, but probably won’t as the boards with the shavings or sawdust on top make a comfy place for a nap.

*The 2 by planks will probably need to be of different widths–nominal 4, 6 or 8.

ETA: My “barn” will consist of stand alone stalls with pipe framing and wood siding, so the floors will have to be laid one at a time.

[12mints]

And the treated wood won’t rot, correct? Sorry, I’m not the handy type :lol:

[jawa]

Treated wood will rot, but it will take a long time. It is also dependent on the moisture it is exposed to. If you bed deeper (more urine absorbed by shavings, less by the flooring), it will last a lot longer.

[Simkie]

I’ve always liked the idea of a wood floor, but doesn’t that catch manure fork tines like crazy?

[jawa]

One barn I boarded at had the grid mats in the stalls. It didn’t matter which direction you tried to pick the stall a tine would get caught in a rut and poop balls would go EVEYWHERE!!! Cussing would ensue!

I liked the grid flooring for the drainage of the wet spots (grid was laid over a
DEEP layer of 57 stone), but it was awful to pick poops.

If we had been able to bed deeper, the grid wouldn’t have caused as much cussing.

I would imagine the wood floor would be similar, in that it would be an issue if it wasn’t bedded deeply. This is assuming you would pull back dry bedding and snow shovel out the wet.

[Tiffani_B]

I’ve had wood floors - hated them. They were slippery when wet and pitchfork tines were constantly getting caught and breaking off.

I just put Stall Savers mats in my stalls. VERY easy to install. They’re light enough for one person to do the whole job. I leveled the stall with gravel, put the mat down, and screwed it all in with 1x4s along the base of the walls. It took me half a day to do all the work myself. So far I LOVE it.

[SugarCubes]

Stone dust makes a great floor and it is an easy DIY project you can do in a couple of hours. Determine how many inches you need to level out the hole in the floor then give the measurements to the quarry and they’ll tell you how many tons you’ll need. Have it dumped near the stall, shovel into stall and rake to smooth. Take a 2x4 with a level on top and go around the stall making sure it’s nice and smooth then top with mats. You can spritz with water and compact it first, but if you’re covering with well fitting mats, it’ll compact to near concrete-like consistency with just the horses standing on it. Good luck!

[Jim_in_PA]

Lots of ways to physically accomodate this, but…this isn’t your barn and putting money into “construction” is money you’ll not recoup. You’d also need permission to make the changes and potentially put yourself at risk for those changes if the BO gets whacko about things. It will not likely change the attitude toward maintenance and accommodations, either. Perhaps you should consider another option, such as finding a different barn that has well designed and maintained stalls?

[Guilherme]

[QUOTE=Jim_in_PA;8879517]
Lots of ways to physically accomodate this, but…this isn’t your barn and putting money into “construction” is money you’ll not recoup. You’d also need permission to make the changes and potentially put yourself at risk for those changes if the BO gets whacko about things. It will not likely change the attitude toward maintenance and accommodations, either. Perhaps you should consider another option, such as finding a different barn that has well designed and maintained stalls? ;)[/QUOTE]

This.

Per wood floors, we put them in our barn 21 years ago. I replaced them three years ago as they were showing serious signs of deterioration. A prior tenant had put rubber mats over the wood and that kept moisture on top of the wood, accelerating the deterioration. My error on permitting that.

The base is a concrete slab with french drains and then 4" of crushed limestone on top of that. The wood is laid over the limestone. It makes cleaning quite simple and we’ve NEVER had a smell issue (except for one tenant who did not clean the barn frequently enough; how infrequent?..some stalls had a 6" layer of manure in them when they were finally done at my insistence).

Wood is a good surface but, like every surface, has pros and cons.

G.

[bdj]

I just had an excavation company come in and renovate some areas around my barn, including fixing the giant hole that had developed in the middle of my pony’s stall. Not sure this is something I’d want to do in someone else’s barn, but the excavators dug out the existing dirt floor (they ended up renting a mini-backhoe for that, as it was very packed down really hard), then put inseveral inches of stone dust before installing stall grids from Earth Horse: http://www.earthhorse.com/stableflooring.htm which were then backfilled with more stone dust.
So far (it’s only been about a week), I’m very happy with the result - especially since pony has decided that the stall is the perfect place to pee. The grids are doing a great job of holding the stone dust in place, so that the pee can drain through. There’s been a bit of settling, but the excavators left me a small pile of stone dust so I can top off the job as I need to.

It is probably work that I could have done myself, but with the other work that I needed to have done, it was much easier and faster to have it done as part of the larger job. What’s the saying about “fast, good, cheap - pick two”?

[Hermein]

I’ve always liked the idea of a wood floor, but doesn’t that catch manure fork tines like crazy?

I never had a problem with that. I bedded pretty deeply with sawdust & used a manure fork with plastic tines*. Beneath the wood was river sand. Also, the back doors of the stalls opened into corrals so the horses usually went outside to do their business. I’ve always had my barns set up that way, and the horses I have now don’t want to poop where they dine–I think most horses are that way, at least most of mine are, and have been.

• I like these because they’re light weight, but they aren’t as strong as metal by a long shot. But metal bends, so. . . .

ETA: For the poster who asked about “treated”, yes treating means that the wood is protected from urine. Treated wood isn’t totally impervious to it, but treated planks do give longer service.

[12mints]

I wouldn’t have asked if moving somewhere else was an option or if I knew the barn owner would object. She’ll grumble about it, and then move her horse in that there if/when we ever moved out :winkgrin: none of these options will totally destroy my wallet, and besides, my horse’s comfort is worth it.

Thanks again everyone for your input!