I have an 18H 13 year old Quarter horse that is pretty much retired due to a meniscus tear in stifle. He lays/sleeps on his left side when he goes down at night in the stall. He has TONS of bedding but is getting tons of wounds from rubbing when he gets up. He has also had a capped elbow on that side 
With him being so big him getting up due to the sore stifle Im sure he rolls and moves quite a bit getting up. I would have thought they all would have diminished since he has a blanket on now with the cold but they have not. I have tried every kind of solvent to put on, silver coat, etc. Has anyone had anything like this happen and if so what have you used or done? I have looked into the fancy super padded stall floor but its way too expensive to do that for a 12x12 stall unfortunately. Im super sad cause I dont know how to solve this. any help would greatly appreciate. And yes hes on Equioxx, cosaquin asu, injections to help
Have you tried different types of bedding? I think peat moss is more commonly used in the UK but that might be an option.
Where are the rubs? In spots where the blanket covers, or only on the areas not covered by the blanket?
Does he get turnout or is he on complete stall rest because of the injury? If he has turnout, is he out on grass? Or a dry lot?
I havenāt tried peat moss and imagine that has to be pricey? Rubs are on hip, elbow, shoulder. They are covered now with blanket. He gets over 7-8 hours of turnout on grass and there are patches of dirt but in winter he has blanket on.
I have not dealt with this specifically but I did use a sleazy for my horse with blanket rubs. Not sure where yours is getting rubbed but they make two sizes, one that goes to the withers and one is an all-over model. https://ss4horses.com/solid-sheet/
Have you tried a donut boot to prevent capped elbow? What kind of flooring does the stall have? What bedding are you using? Adding stall mats to one 12Ć12 stall shouldnāt be more than a few hundred dollars and it can save bedding and be a good long term investment. Sometimes doing a combination of bedding (straw or shavings over sawdust or pellets) can help too.
As a last resort you may find that he does better living outside with more room to get up and down and the ability to choose better spots where it is easier to get up and down. If he is so uncomfortable that he spends longer than normal laying down, you will have to consider his quality of life.
I think OP means those fancy orthopedic padded stalls like you see in equine hospital recoveryā¦which can run several thousand for a 12x12.
But your post reminds meā¦not sure where OP is but weather depending, a sand pit (not too deep) can be cheaply installed that horses seem to seek out for outdoor sleeping. Might need snow brushed off. We have also let the horses destroy a round bale which they then paw around and like to sleep on/in.
I have thought of trying a donut boot for the capped elbow. He has rubber stall mat flooring in stall with a lot of shavings. He doesnt lay down probably more than 3-5 hours a day at night when he sleeps. He doesnt have the option of sleeping outside unfortunately
Rubs are not from blanket and yes I have a sleazy. But maybe a whole body sleazy may work
Can you try saw dust? Depending on the type of shavings, they move around under the horse. Sometimes deep sawdust will pack down and not move out from under them as much.
Can you define tons in terms of inches of depth all over?
Also, how is the bedding managed? He may do better on deep litter bedding. Itās not in fashion these days, and itās a pain in the ass 3 or 4 times a year to do true deep litter, but guaranteed no part of his body will ever touch his mats if itās done right.
I do modified deep litter and have for years. Itās a compromise between a pristine stall with insufficient bedding (or ridiculous waste and cost) and true deep litter which has the pack removed only a few times a year. I start with bedding a good 8" - 12" deep (expensive to start but never that bad again!) and then skip out the poo every day and level the stall without digging down. Let the pee sink to the bottom where it will start to form a mat or mattress also called a pack of compacted bedding. Every couple of weeks or so in winter and every week in summer I pick poo, then scrape back the top layer to find the wet stuff underneath. Take that out, sprinkle baking soda (my horse does not do well on the mineral deodorizers, but feed stores sell giant bags of baking soda) level the stall and add a couple of bags of bedding to make a fresh top layer.
For deep bedding it is extremely cost efficient and the pack acts as a sort of box spring for the top layer of fluffy bedding.
I got my peat moss at the garden center. I really tried to find poultry peat but could not around here, it was supposed to be cheaper.
I did not find peat bedding to be that expensive. Yes, at first while you are getting a decent depth of bedding in the stall it can look really pricey, but there is so much less waste of bedding in a peat bed.
I like my stallās bedding to sink under my feet. It did not take as much peat bedding to get this as it did sawdust. When I cleaned it, well the urine makes a wet spot in the bedding with definite borders, the urine does not spread out and it is easy to scoop up and I never had to dig it out to the base of the stall floor. The manure stayed at the top of the bedding and I just had to pick it up. I could clean the stall without much peat moss ending up in the wheelbarrow. It also saved me a LOT of time mucking out the stall.
The only disadvantages are that you HAVE TO clean the horseās hooves out more frequently, and the horseās coat does not look as shiny.
If I remember correctly it took most of a bale to get a good bed for the horse, then since no bedding was wasted mucking out or with the urine just spreading out, I used maybe a half a bale of peat a week cleaning the stall daily. Around once a month I stripped the stall and started the process all over again.
The stall never smelled of urine or manure. The flies stayed away. My neighbor (my horse was in my backyard, Charlotte, NC) just asked me to dump the dirty peat moss over the fence so he could use it on his gorgeous garden. I had no complaints about smells or flies.
And the bed was SO SOFT even though the bedding was not as deep as what I considered suitable with sawdust. So long as I never let the stall become a slimy mess he had no problems getting up and down in the sort of small stall. He NEVER dug down to the stall floor, and he always had a soft cushion under his body.
If you have a gardener nearby they may be willing to pick up the used bedding for free and get it all away from your farm.
wow thats very interesting. What exactly is deep litter bedding? This is the first time hearing of this pardon my ignorance
Deep littering is basically a system where you just pick the manure and leave the wet spots. It seems to be much more a British/European thing and in the US, the people I know who still do it are old-timey. Not a judgment, just seems to be out of style.
The urine will create mats which pad the stall. It SHOULD be totally cleaned periodically, some people spread baking soda or lime under to control ammonia smell but others say if it smells youāre doing it wrong.
How much to put down/what to use for bedding/how often to clean it out will vary.
What exactly is he rubbing on - his feet?
Iām trying to imagine how this happens through a blanket?
He had the sores before the blankets went on from the summer. There is rubber matting below the layers of shavings. Heās a big horse but lost a lot of mobility with his stifle issue so he doesnāt just pop up like a normal horse
I was told by a British woman that one had to deep litter a clay floor for at least a year for the clay to set up 
It was an interesting idea.
Here we call it thatching. We first began the practice when our ewes were lambing in the frigid temps. Taking a couple of roundbales into a big open barn and letting them eat and destroy and then brining in another couple and placeing in a new area. Eventually the whole barn floor is 12-20" deep in bedding. The ferment process makes the floor very warm. The air can be 15 degrees and the floor is 70? 80?degrees Lambs are warmā¦
In the spring i move it allllll out of there. Down to the rock. Add more rock and keep clean during summer and come Fall, bring in roundbales again. I now do this in the horse barn and the sheds. Horses appreciate the warmth. Because barns are open door and sheds are three sided there is no noticeable ammonia smell. Not til Springā¦
You could try banking the stall with straw.
Iām still having trouble picturing how he is getting rubs? Or, they just wonāt heal? Are you saying he rubbed them on the rubber mats as he tries to roll up to his feet? Like multiple attempts to get up and in the process is rubbing the mat?
I might consider putting pellets under shavings. Deep bedding is great until you have to strip it down. My friend deep littered her goat pens and it took her weeks to empty it by hand with a wheelbarrow. She said she would never do it again. Basically it was layers of yards and yards of bedding that had been peed and pooped on for a year, and then compressed. It canāt stay in there forever.
@MadTrotternMadTrotter nailed it. And @eightpondfarm farm is right about the added warmth once it builds up. In North America youāre more likely to see it in group housing (no stalls) for livestock and much less in horse barns, but some will do deep litter in broodmare group housing. It creates a lovely soft, warm bed and wastes no bedding.
I donāt do full-on deep litter because I have to dig manually so I prefer to do it more often so itās not such a beastly task. Horse barns that are built for full-on deep litter will have stall floors lower than the aisle and the stall walls between horses will be hinged so that all the partitions can be swung against the back wall and the twice yearly dig out can be done with a tractor.
Deep litter, or modified deep litter can be done with any bedding material. Traditionally itās a straw bed, but I like it best (in a stall) with pellets or āgreenā sawdust. It makes a lovely pack and is easier to clean out manually than straw.
