Pea Gravel

[Bluey]

@Mukluk

I was thinking of using it for my goat pen about 3-4". To raise goats floor level above ground level… I was going to put mats on top of it and then bedding. I was thinking I can just remove mats and rake if it gets uneven.

Road base, an angular material, would be more appropriate to use under mats and should pack properly and be cheaper than pea gravel.

Just be sure it doesn’t has bigger gravel on it, called here non-spec road base, that may have the odd chunky piece, unless you want to pick those out as you tamp the material down.

[mvp]

@Jennwarr84

My biggest concern is the urine. It seems to me that it would smell over time. My husband is planning on using the geo-textile fabric under the pea gravel. Our horses have free access to their stalls from the pasture. I don’t know why he would suggest the pea gravel in their stalls. I’ve seen a few natural boarding barns online that have the pea gravel in their stalls. I need to do more research.

I was in a barn that used pea gravel in its runs. Hate the stuff.

Pea gravel remains unstable, like ball-bearings forever precisely because of is pea-round shape. If you put it over geotextile, the horses’ hooves will poke through to that in short order. The pea spot will smell. It is hard on horses who have any frailty or problems getting up and down. It will create bedsores for those horses who have any arthritis at all.

I think it was a farrier’s nightmare where we were-- in Oregon’s wet, western Clay World. When you mix pea gravel with clay, it becomes a very rough, compacting mix. You need to pick hooves religiously or have horses with any tendency toward sore feet/soles to get hurt by the mix.

[mvp]

@Guilherme

Cleaning pea (or any type) of gravel will be difficult. If you’ve got a good base and drainage system then you can use chemicals and water but I suspect you’ll find it gets expensive as the volume of water to througly clean a gravel bedded box stall will be sustantial. You won’t be able to use a pressure washer, you’ll just be able to use flow.

Removal of manure will also be problematical, as gravel will adhear to the fecal matter meaning you’ll be removing some of the gravel with each pile or have to come up with some sort of “separation” system. This is a problem with sawdust or shavings, but those materials are so cheap the loss of a small amount with each cleaning is a non-issue.

Again, I don’t see this as a viable stall bedding material over the long haul.

G.

Actually, if the piles are left alone and dry, it’s really easy to pick manure our of pea gravel. If, on the other hand, it gets wet or broken down, the manure will stay, unless you don’t mind taking out a certain amount of the gravel with the poop you scoop up with an apple picker.