Stall floor thoughts; mats or no, drainage, reduce waste, etc

[Heinz_57]

I boarded at a dirt floor barn for about a year. Stall cleaning was a pain, especially for horses that like to pee in one area. All the geldings stalls had a big dip in the center from the perpetually wet pee spot turning to mud and then being cleaned out. None of the stalls were what I’d call “flat”, some were better than others but all were lumpy and bumpy. It might work if you’re diligent about re-leveling and repacking every few months, but this barn was not.

Personally I would stick with mats!

[BroncoMo]

Well I mostly curious as to whether it’s feasible to expect a well draining sand floor to continue draining well (and quickly) with repeated use. The “sand” stalls I spoke of above hardly had any urine to remove daily like you would have with mats. Now, I don’t know if it would stay that way, or if with more use the soiled would become so saturated that it turns in to a mess.

The reason I don’t care for pooling on top of the mats is because with any semblance of stall walking, the soiled bedding underneath gets mixed with clean shavings and increases waste. Now, I’m not a stall building expert by any means (hence I find some of this interesting and outside the scope of my experience) because I despise the concept of keeping horses in stalls unless there’s a real good reason. So when I keep my personal horses inside, it is as short lived as I can possibly make it.

The more I read and think about it the more I am not interested in getting rid of mats. But I still want to find a way to more effectively use bedding and not be stripping foaling stalls every couple of days, because when the little critters figure out how to use their legs, they are churning EVERYTHING.

[baybrio]

I’ve mucked more stalls than I care to mention. Might be my best horsemanship skill.

Here’s a method I’ve used that works in some situations.

I managed a lovely barn with thick rough stone paver floors. I’ll try and explain what we did, it takes a long time to write this up. I could show you all in a minute.

We never stripped the stalls (except the one horse in the 24 horse barn that made a complete mess every night). We bedded deeply. Cleaned all the wet spots completely everyday, and the manure of course. The trick to saving shavings is to let the shavings “pack” down in the non-pee spots. The pee goes through the top layer of shavings and is soaked up below. You have flick the dry bedding off the pee area, then clean out the wet bedding. Do not fluff up the bedding all over the stall. The packed shavings are very soft, dense and absorbent. I’d say the bedding was a firm 8-10" thick. We did bank the sides. Banking the sides is a huge time saver and I believe bedding saver. Instead of having to open a bag of shavings every day or so, we could just pull as much or little bedding as needed from the banks everyday. Add a new bag to the banks every third day or so.

This does NOT work in barns where the stalls are not mucked every day. It will not work if the person cleaning the stalls is not conscientious about this method. It works better if the same horse uses the same stall everyday because you can guestimate where the wet spots are. It takes a bit of time for the shavings to compress when you first start. And a lot of shavings until they compress.

I use this method at home when horses are in for an extended time. Mine are typically only in when the vet or farrier come so it’s not necessary to keep any bedding in the stalls.

As for mats, they have to be maintained just like any other stall floor. I don’t mean to gross anyone out, but the reality in many areas-rats. Rats think mats are fantastic roofs. They tunnel, burrow and nest. They think mats were made for them. Close to food, relatively warm, usually the ground below is easy for a rat to make a tunnel. It’s not the sign of poorly run barn to have rats move in. Well run barns just know that the mats have to be periodically removed and the ground below them de-ratted, leveled etc. As far as I can tell the only way to not have rats in some areas is poison. Hate that option for many many reasons. Maybe a jack russell pack. If you don’t maintain the mats they dip, curl and become treacherous. Even on concrete you have to flip them occasionally, and urine can build up between each mat.

As many have already said dirt/clay floors are not maintenance free either. Once a wet spot starts to make a low spot, it just keeps growing. You try and get the wet out, scrape a little of base out, the low spot grows, it’s really hard to stop without major rework and serious tamping.

I’ve heard from someone using the plastic grids that they are very difficult. She said tey don’t drain well after poop, urine and bedding get down to the gravel and plug up the drainage. The grid catches the tines of manure forks, the grids rub hocks and elbows. I’ve never been at a stable that used these though.

I’ve never used stall mattresses nor stall skins. They might be perfect.

All this maintenance - ugh. Horses should be out as much as possible for them and for us.