No to pallets too. They rot and break. Especially when you walk on them. Great home for rats and mice though. Level the floor with screenings and put down the exercise mats. My pony walks on mine, I drive over them with the tractor and they are still pretty much fine. Not suitable for horse stalls but pretty sturdy to just walk on.
Wow, thank you, everyone!
Stone dust and lightweight interlocking mats seem like the most reasonable option. I actually wouldn’t mind doing normal stall mats in it as someone suggested, and then the stall would be ready for a horse should things change in the future.
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Go to your local Home Depot/Lowes and have them cut a piece of vinyl flooring for you, no need to make it adhere to the floor, it will stay put with the weight of your tack etc., look nice and a breeze to clean.
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I do forget that my situation in the woods with no agriculture nearby is so unusual! We had a rat here back in the 1960s but not since.
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We have pallets with plywood over the top. No rats, no mice, we have dogs and cats. Works perfectly well.
Horse stall mats are 20 percent off at Tractor Supply right now. It will cost about $250 to put them in a 12x12 stall.
Then you will have a space for another horse, just in case. You never know when or if a friend’s horse might need a place to stay in an emergency like evacuation from fire or hurricane, depending on where you’re located. $250 to be able to offer sanctuary to a horse and friend is a very small cost to bear.
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I am now a fan of plastic pallets- the kind that they use for Coke A Cola. They have one side with a few plastic slats, but the other side is largely comprised of openings that are 2" or so. They are the depth of usual pallets (4" to 6"). They are pretty much indestructible, they’ll keep your stuff off of the ground, and you could throw a rug over them- with rubber backing, so that it doesn’t slip.
I bought mine for $7 each. I am not using them for your purpose, but they are pretty awesome for what I am using them for.
Yes I too love plastic pallets. They don’t rot like the wood ones and are lighter weight. If they get dirty you can drag them out and hose them down and they don’t hold moisture like wood ones. I cut up my wood pallets for raised beds and don’t want any more wood ones. However I can’t find more plastic ones unless I drive to another state. And they will break if you walk on them. Maybe I just weigh more than you do 
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We have a couple plastic pallets but they are slicker than snot if snow gets on them, IME with the ones we have. A rubber backed rug would likely solve that problem. The one that tried to kill me is being a step up to a garden shed so it got snowed on; it holds me and I’m not a lightweight but it did try to throw me off. lol
I am unsure if you plan to floor the whole stall or just a small section of it. You mentioned inexpensive as a criterion. Unless you have a secret free source of plastic pallets they can be very costly. Northern Tool has standard 48x40 inch pallets on sale right now. To floor a 12x12 foot stall would cost $2,160 plus tax.
Plus the cost of any underlayment material to level them.
I am a huge fan of FB Marketplace. That’s where I found my plastic pallets. I even got the guy to deliver them. These are 37" high, and they were like new. They are not light. I got them to make a hay ring of sorts. I put the side with the small holes to the outside, and then I tied them together, top and bottom, with a bit of space between. I roll the bale in, and then tie them closed. They can’t get their feet into them, and they can’t make a huge mess of the hay. So far, so good. Total cost $49.00.
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There are 2 grades of plastic pallets. The ones @ASB_Stars has are really beefy. The light weight ones get brittle and crack.
Wood pallets seem to come in a number of configurations. I have had a few that were oak and the slats were really close together. Those weighed a ton and lasted forever. I have also had some that are a very light cheap thin pine. Much easier to move around but broke easily.
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You make a very good point @SonnysMom!
The pallets I typically get are long, oak, with slats very far apart. They had rolled sheet metal shipped on them.
No way can they be used as a floor because the slats are too far apart.
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Having handled literally thousands of wooden pallets, I have to say that there are very few that I would let be around horses. One of my jobs was to load the pallets- in stacks of 12- onto a truck that took them to recycling. There were about 240 pallets on each load. The ones that are brand new, and well constructed look nice, but ultimately they are much more fragile that you would think, and I hate having spears and shards of brittle wood anywhere near horses. In addition, if they are sitting in the mud or wet, they are going to rot inside of a year, IMHO.
The plastic pallets come in the heavy, well constructed version, which can carry heavy items, and what I would describe as “shells”, which allow bulk quantities of lighter items to be moved easily. The shells really wouldn’t have any application around horses, for me.
I have these in my barn (it’s got a concrete floor) in the run-in area and the stalls - they’ve held up well (have had them for 3 years). I think the shipping was either free or pretty inexpensive compared to other places.
https://www.rubberflooringinc.com/interlocking-tile/foam/portable-stall-mats.html
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For just human use, these are way cheaper. https://www.oceanstatejoblot.com/anti-fatigue-floor-mats-4-pack-gray/product/222666
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Yep interlocking foam mats are exactly what I would do
We don’t have any rats either. We did have some at one point that were climbing up the chicken coop’s wire wall, getting through a small section at top, then climbing down the walls into the coop to the chicken feeders and out again. I took the feeders off the walls and hung them under the coop off the ground. Solved that. I also use a blower or sweep in the barn. Keeps all feed off the ground. All feed enclosed. Dogs then take care of the rest.
