I’ve had a dirt floor barn for 10 years now and I’m looking at laying concrete through the whole thing. I can’t decide if I want to do the stalls or not though. I’ve been told that even with mats, it’s hard on the horses legs and I have a senior mare who spends a lot of time inside during the winter.
What would you recommend? Concrete center aisle or all concrete?
Horses seem to prefer harder ground to stand there snoozing, soft ground to lay down to nap.
You can have concrete stalls with ample soft bedding for them to lay down and still have places for them to stand on harder ground.
Every barn in Europe and several top end ones in the US I worked in were concrete floors with good bedding and horses were fine in there, many times 24/7 other than when out giving lessons or exercising/training/competing.
So are the floors in every vet clinic I know.
That was before mats, too.
Now, with mats, I think that the advantages of concrete with mats and as much bedding as necessary outweigh the disadvantages of so many other stall floor types.
They had some studies in Europe as reported in The Horse magazine this summer where they found out horses given a choice preferred the concrete floors.
Can’t find the article, but here is a general one that may help answer some of the questions you may have about barns:
http://www.thehorse.com/articles/12326/designing-your-horses-home
I expect there is no perfect, ideal stall flooring, they all have advantages and disadvantages, you have to pick what works best for your barn.
Now, if you are thinking about resale, many people hate concrete flooring with a passion, more maybe that would love to have those.
Resale value may also weigh in what you want to do.
I prefer concrete stalls because:
-Easy to clean
-Don’t hold urine and smell
-horses can’t wear down spots and make the stall uneven
-Mats lay flat so I my pitchfork doesn’t get stuck on the edges
-resale value
The only real con is that you do have to use more bedding. You could, alternately, use those soft stalls mats but those are even more cost.
I do not like concrete stalls. I boarded at one barn with them, and our horses definitely seemed to prefer the dirt stalls at shows.
I did like brick based stalls though. The horses seemed to do well on them and they did not stink. There where really big bricks, and I have never seen another barn like that.
My stalls are sand, then plywood, and then stall mattresses. We did a couple just sand and then the mattress too, but I prefer the slightly firmer footing of the plywood.
My whole barn is concrete, including 4’ up the walls. My barn was designed with the stalls 4 inches lower than the aisle, so you can get lots of bedding in there, without it all spilling out. Because I deep bed, we use the little Kubota, with the front bucket to do ‘spring’ and ‘fall’ cleaning. The partitions all come out, so we can drive the 40’ length of the barn to do this. 
[QUOTE=mht;8441225]
My whole barn is concrete, including 4’ up the walls. My barn was designed with the stalls 4 inches lower than the aisle, so you can get lots of bedding in there, without it all spilling out. Because I deep bed, we use the little Kubota, with the front bucket to do ‘spring’ and ‘fall’ cleaning. The partitions all come out, so we can drive the 40’ length of the barn to do this. :)[/QUOTE]
My stall walls also come down. I also love the idea of making the stalls a little lower!
Thanks for the great advice everyone
My barn is concrete too; when I moved here the stalls had dirt floors and were sunken about 3’ in the center from years of standing & peeing, and no one maintained it. I tried to dig them out to lay gravel/stone dust into them and just dug and dug and dug, finding layer after layer of putrefying hay and bedding. I hired some farm boys to try to help and it just got worse and worse. 30 years of bad management. Ugh.
So we filled them in with gravel and then poured a concrete floor. It has a drain through the middle so we can pull the mats and wash them if we need to, and put 1" galvanized rubber mats in each stall.
But, my horses are not stalled most of the time, so they don’t have to stay there if they don’t want. They rarely sleep in there, but choose the paddock, arena or grass pasture.
We have concrete thru the whole barn, our old barn too. While we do not live in a flood zone, we do live on the cusp of a hurricane zone and have been know to get tropical storms that dump a lot of rain, enough water to have 4 inches running thru the barn (old one). Had we had dirt floors it would have been a disaster. As it was, once the rain stopped we swept the water out and it dried fairly quickly. So new barn got concrete thru out. We have mats in the stalls and in the aisle. Never had any issues and no regrets.
I don’t know how big your barn is, but if you have a large area to do (many stalls), there might be a big difference in cost of concrete for the whole barn vs. just aisle. Personally, unless I was having problems with the existing stall flooring system, I wouldn’t do the stalls. When we built our barn, we did the entire barn (storage, aisle, tack room, grooming/wash area) except for the stalls. I’d been in a barn with concrete stalls and hated it so didn’t want it. I’ve been happy with that arrangement in my barn and wouldn’t do it differently if I were to do over.
My barn has concrete in the 16 foot aisle and in the tack room and grooming stall which are opposite each other on the north end (picture a “T”) with packed gravel in the four stalls, mats laid over the gravel. I haven’t had any problems until this, the 9th, year. I’m going to have to pull the mats next summer and re-do the base, which will be a giant pain, I’m sure. I have mats down the center aisle, too.
My barn is small. 36’ x 48’. 6 stalls. And if I decide to concrete everything, I’ll have a wash rack :))) I’m pretty stoked about the wash rack
[QUOTE=Ready To Riot;8442593]
My barn is small. 36’ x 48’. 6 stalls. And if I decide to concrete everything, I’ll have a wash rack :))) I’m pretty stoked about the wash rack[/QUOTE]
Well, then your stalls make up about half of the square footage, if my 12x12 stall guess is right. So that could make a big difference in cost, doing stalls or not. Just one factor to consider…although it wasn’t really part of my own decision, I’ll admit!
Even if you don’t do the stalls, you can concrete the wash rack, I would think? My groom/wash rack is concrete, with mats, right next to the stall that isn’t.
[QUOTE=horsepoor;8442676]
Well, then your stalls make up about half of the square footage, if my 12x12 stall guess is right. So that could make a big difference in cost, doing stalls or not. Just one factor to consider…although it wasn’t really part of my own decision, I’ll admit!
Even if you don’t do the stalls, you can concrete the wash rack, I would think? My groom/wash rack is concrete, with mats, right next to the stall that isn’t.[/QUOTE]
In theory, yes I could still have a wash rack, but… If you saw the set up in my barn you’d understand that there would be potential for flooding the stall next to the wash rack.
My barn is a very… Basic barn. All of the stalls can come down and out to open up the entire thing. Im in the process of kind of changing that to have more permanent stall fronts, but still have the option of removing side walls of I need/want a bigger stall. My current stall fronts are 12’ gates because it made the most sense at the time of building the barn. But I’m revamping the place.
A local lady built a fancy barn here.
She concreted it all and worked happily out of there for years.
She retired and rented her barn to a local trainer, that hated concrete stalls.
He asked her to let him take the concrete out of the stalls, she agreed and he did.
What a mount of concrete that was , sitting outside for weeks, until they came haul it off.
Within six months, the trainer was wishing he had not done that, stalls were much harder to manage, horses were not any different living in the new flooring, packed something with mats on it, some were messy because of walking on that now less firm ground and the mats not staying put down as nicely as they were on concrete.
No, he didn’t replace the concrete, just eventually left and left a mess in there.
Yes, there is more to that than if the stalls had concrete flooring, but I say, if you like concrete for the stalls, you can add mats and bedding to make it as soft as you want, just as you can manage without concrete also, if that is what you choose.
I still think the ideal small barn would be an all purpose building, concrete floors and portable stalls, that can at any time be converted to some other use, if life changes where horse keeping in there is not necessary any more.
It also has a better resale value.
Buyer can then keep it as a barn, make it a storage area and build a different barn or make it a garage or shop.
Building that can have many uses makes good sense in real estate.
May not matter here, just more to consider.
[QUOTE=Bluey;8442833]
A local lady built a fancy barn here.
She concreted it all and worked happily out of there for years.
She retired and rented her barn to a local trainer, that hated concrete stalls.
He asked her to let him take the concrete out of the stalls, she agreed and he did.
What a mount of concrete that was , sitting outside for weeks, until they came haul it off.
Within six months, the trainer was wishing he had not done that, stalls were much harder to manage, horses were not any different living in the new flooring, packed something with mats on it, some were messy because of walking on that now less firm ground and the mats not staying put down as nicely as they were on concrete.
No, he didn’t replace the concrete, just eventually left and left a mess in there.
Yes, there is more to that than if the stalls had concrete flooring, but I say, if you like concrete for the stalls, you can add mats and bedding to make it as soft as you want, just as you can manage without concrete also, if that is what you choose.
I still think the ideal small barn would be an all purpose building, concrete floors and portable stalls, that can at any time be converted to some other use, if life changes where horse keeping in there is not necessary any more.
It also has a better resale value.
Buyer can then keep it as a barn, make it a storage area and build a different barn or make it a garage or shop.
Building that can have many uses makes good sense in real estate.
May not matter here, just more to consider.[/QUOTE]
Essentially, this is my barn. My stall walls are 2x6’s that slide into place on a track made of 2x4’s. The 2x4 has 2 inches cut out in the center to fit the 2x6. The stall fronts are just cattle panels at the moment. Every componant that makes up the stalls except the 2x4’s can easily be removed by tiny ole me with no help needed.
This barn will most likely never be sold as it sits on family owned property. Resale value wasn’t a factor, but expansion was. I can easily add on to this barn without tearing down anything, but only cutting into an outer wall. Which has been the plan from day on. Because I WILL have an indoor one day!
we have a very basic barn and have concrete floors throughout. we have removable stalls and sometimes change up the layout which we couldn’t do if the stalls were not concrete. we use stall mats and deep bedding to help make the stalls comfortable for our horses when they go inside for bad weather. and make sure to put a drain in your wash rack it will help reduce chances of flooding in other stalls.
My whole barn is concrete. It is an old bank barn (just over 200 years old now) and used to house cattle. It had several doors and troughs that were removed to make it a horse barn. I now have 4 stalls, a wash stall and a feed stall. The whole barn is concrete with no mats.
I have no problems with the concrete in the stalls. I don’t even have mats as I don’t like the way they shift and I find it difficult to muck the stalls with them in there.
I do keep a lot of shavings in the stalls and my ponies have never had any issues with this (knock on wood! THey are turned out for 12hr in the winter and 18hr in the summer). One of my guys is 19 and has never been off or lame his entire life - the only time he has been injured is when he was at a show that had mats in the stall (in someones private barn) and he slipped when he was getting up. He was quite sore the next day and needed some work to get him comfortable again.
I also have a wash area and sloped the floors slightly so the water does not sit anywhere or flood the barn.
I’m not saying concrete is perfect for everyone, but I’ve never had a problem with it and find mucking to be much easier on a level surface. I’ve worked at several barns that have had all kinds of different “footing” in the stalls and love my concrete barn
Now I do really like the comfort stalls, but that will be sometime in the future.
One of my barns is concrete. It is on the larger side 12 stalls and room for more should I desire. The stall walls are concrete as well. They are painted with a high gloss white. The biggest thing for me is about the ability to clean strip and disinfect. This is so much easier with the concrete. I like to strip and clean head to toe twice a year. (I dunno just like to do this I guess) We call it the main barn for good reason.
The penn barn is wood with natural or compacted dirt floor. We use it more as turn out shelter rather than a structured barn. While handy and I appreciate having it, it is so much harder to clean by way far. Then there is the 3 barn which is a combo of concrete floor with wood walls that are on tracts so movable. This we use as a structured barn but less than the main barn, and basically as an overflow area. Because the main barn is so much easier to maintain. This set up is in the middle of ability to keep it clean out of the 3 barns.
I don’t have any problems with stall induced lameness from one barn to the other. Which is relevant because I happen to have 3 types of set ups. But that said my horses get as much turnout as possible on as much pasture as possible. But I must admit to be checking out comfort stalls as well.
I built my barn with dirt floors and concrete beams (perimeters around the edges of the stalls). Hated the inevitable holes in the middle of the stalls that resulted, so put in nice base and stall grids. The stall grids are wonderful but a bit slick. So I then put mats on top of the (the interlocking kind from Tractor Supply). I consider the stall floors to now be about perfect. Grids allow drainage, mats stay smooth and flat. Not cheap, but probably less expensive than concrete.
The barn where I board one of my horses has stall mattresses over dirt, which are also lovely. So sweet to see the horses always lying down and napping (the sign of a good floor IMO). I am curious how they will hold up over time.
I looked up comfort stalls… They look nice. That site also sells pavers. I’ve heard a lot of complaints about pavers holding a smell. Do you think the comfort stalls hold a sent too?
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