Conveyor belt material for stall/sheds. How do you stake it down?

[BroncoMo]

Before anyone brings it up, I’ll make sure it’s clean/safe/wire-free.

How do you stake the stuff down or keep it from shifting? I have a source for belt material and I’m entertaining it for my sheds. But I can’t wrap my head around keeping it from shifting. I’m in a bad winter climate and a lot of times sheds are cleaned out in the spring and throughout the summer, but winter is nearly impossible. Plus per another post I just put up, I JUST put down a bunch of road base in my big shed and would like to keep it from getting ground in to a muddy poop mess this winter.

[SusanO]

I wouldn’t use it for stalls where the horses are kept in overnight. It can get really slippery when urine soaks through the bedding and the horse lies down and tries to stand up. However it would work really well for a stall used as a run in. I would throw a little bit of grit or sand on top of the mats so they don’t get slippery when wet. I have some mats that I put out next to my stalls to keep the red clay from mixing with crusher run and to keep the horses hooves from making a muddy mess. Two of the mats are good. One curled up. I am not sure how to keep the mats from moving around except that their weight tends to anchor them somewhat.

[Mosey_2003]

I hate conveyor belting, it’s an absolute nightmare to slice. You’d have to use stakes to hold it down, not sure how great an idea that is with horses involved.

[BroncoMo]

I certainly don’t want stakes but I figured it’s worth an ask here to see if anyone has brilliant ideas

[SusanO]

It has worked really well for me on the ground outside where my stalls have dutch doors to the outside. I have red clay here and nothing was going to keep that clay from becoming a mucky mess, even with gravel down. The one mat did roll up length wise but I think if I can get it turned over it will smash out flat again. One place I boarded used it for stall matting. It is too slippery for that if the horses lay down.

[BroncoMo]

Well the horses live out full time and use their sheds a lot in the winter. I’m wanting to bed their sheds this winter and don’t want bedding to get smooshed in to my new footing that I just brought in. Hence the want for matting, but the one shed is 60 feet long, so trying to find a cheaper option than standard mats. So if I bed the sheds, they’ll likely be laying down much more in there. And I do worry about them slipping as I had a filly a few years ago break her pelvis by slipping on her stall mats as she stood up (stood up butt first, for some reason).

[Alterwho]

In the past I’ve seen stall mat/rubber material on a roll that you bought by the foot. Might be worth seeing if that’s available anywhere near you. maybe Lowe’s or Home Depot

[BroncoMo]

I could try that too. Jax has it. Still not sure how to stake it down though without the risk of puncture wounds. The conveyor belt is just intriguing I have a cheap/free source for it. Obviously I won’t do it without a solid plan on how to safely use it.

[Grey623]

There are things called ground staples that are 6 inch galvanized steel. I don’t know if they’d go through conveyor belting but you could look into it.

Other things to consider, though they’re probably not horse-proof, include landscape fabric or window screen material, and this plastic sheeting for hallways and over carpets. https://www.amazon.com/Plastic-Protector-Carpeted-Non-Slip-Standing/dp/B0CCDSM27P?th=1

Just something to look at or get ideas from.

Grey

[sascha]

@BroncoMo

I’m in a bad winter climate

If this means you get truly frozen ground, do NOT stake unless you are willing to use something that goes to a depth which is below the frost line. If you don’t go deep enough the stakes will work their way up over time to cause you a huge headache over having to keep banging them back down, or worse, a huge nightmare with horse injuries from protruding stakes that you haven’t noticed in time to prevent anyone standing on them.

[BroncoMo]

Excellent points. Yes I am in south eastern Wyoming; certainly not from the upper south, claiming I have bad winter weather haha. It’s not Canada by any means, but frozen ground usually early November (it’s late this year…) through late April or so. So yes, frost heaves are a problem. Thank you for the reminder about staking below the frost line!!

[sascha]

You’re welcome!

[Alterwho]

Is there a 2X4 or some other edging around the bottom of the inside walls? Thinking you could run the conveyer belt up the wall A few inches and screw it in place and for extra security screw another board over that

[QuestionMark]

This is basically what we did in a shed situation. I had a bunch of old oddly sized mats, so I ran them up as well as I could to the insides of the sides and back wall and then to each other. Really got them as tightly fitted in there as possible. Then we made basically a bumper around the sides and back wall, nailed to the wall and jammed on the top of the edges of the mats. This has stayed put for a couple of winters, even without anything holding down the front edge. I do keep an eye on that front edge to make sure bedding isn’t getting stuck under there but it’s been okay so far.

[BroncoMo]

@Alterwho

Thinking you could run the conveyer belt up the wall A few inches and screw it in place and for extra security screw another board over that

@QuestionMark

Then we made basically a bumper around the sides and back wall, nailed to the wall and jammed on the top of the edges of the mats.

This is a good idea and should be feasible. There is a concrete foundation nearly all the way around, with a board (or few… this thing was built in the 50s by known drunks… things are weird…) placed flat on top of the concrete that all the columns sit on. So there is certainly some vertical infrastructure to nail/screw to. There are 3 doors on the front; one of which has the foundation concrete all the way across it, the other 2 are open with nothing to fix the mats to unless I add a skirt of sorts. Which I have thought about doing anyways.

[Alterwho]

@BroncoMo

the other 2 are open with nothing to fix the mats to unless I add a skirt of sorts. Which I have thought about doing anyways

That should be easy enough to install. I did that with all of my stall doors and the run-in shed to keep the bedding in

[ParadoxFarm]

We use conveyor belt remnants in a barn aisle. Yes, slippery when wet, but we try not to let anything get them wet. For us, it is much better than our surface which is gravelly. At least I can sweet or blow the aisle now. Ours are long enough that they don’t shift much at all. However, you can drill a few holes close to the edges and slip in some heavy duty zip ties to keep them together.