Stall mats: yes or no?

[taylorelaine]

What’s everyone’s preferred stall flooring and process for set up? Our horses are coming home next Monday, and last year our dad installed Stall Savers with play sand underneath—only recently realizing it should’ve been base sand or a better-draining material. We checked the website (too late) and saw they recommend 4–6 inches of limestone, crushed sand, or any material that drains well. I looked up play sand and it says that it is probably the worst material to use for drainage—it does not drain well and can actually hinder drainage.

We’re pretty certain we will end up having a wet and smelly mess with the current setup and we’d rather fix this now than deal with problems once the horses are here—especially since one pees a lot. We also read that straw works best with Stall Savers, but we’ve already ordered 30 bags of fine flake shavings and don’t plan on using straw.

So we’re trying to figure out the best option with limited time:

•Remove the Stall Savers and leave floors bare?

•Replace the play sand with better-draining material and keep the Stall Savers (unsure if the fine flake shavings will work well with them)?

•Switch to stall mats instead?

We’re a little overwhelmed with how little time we have and are feeling unsure where to go from here, but know that the current set up is no good We’d appreciate any advice—we want to get it right before move-in day.

[Foxglove]

To answer, I’d like to know how long your horses are in the stalls each day.

My 4 geldings are outside 24/7 --except to eat (15-20 min a day) and about every six weeks, wait on the farrier for a couple of hours. What I use in stalls, would not work well for horses kept in longer. When I had to stall rest a horse a few years ago, the limits of my set up were clear in about a week --but since you asked:

Originally, stalls were excavated to 2’ below ground level. Gravel for drainage to 1’ . Clay added and packed to 4-6 inches (could be more, not sure) —then every two years, sand mixed with clay is brought in. Stalls are kept clean of hay (easy enough to rake up and fork into wheelbarrow) and cleaned of manure daily. PZ is used on pee spots for odor control, but honestly, since my barn opens at both ends (10x15 doors), there is rarely any odor --the wind blows W-E here and sweeps right through the barn aisle (three stalls on one side of the aisle, two on the other along with tack and feed room).

I have always kept my horses out as much as possible, but I have enough land and pastures to do so. I don’t think my stalls would do for horses kept in. When we had the one horse on stall rest, the sand quickly dissipated until the poor guy was standing on the clay base. I considered shavings, but by that time he’d been moved to “small pen” rest and we could take him out to the small dressage ring . . .

I buy 6 tons of sand/clay every two years and hire the neighbor’s 9 kids to shovel it into the stalls. I recall the 6T of sand was about $400 and the labor was about $100 –

[2DogsFarm]

I only had “mats” the first 5yrs or so in my stalls.
Quotes because they were rubber roofing material called ice dam, given to me by one of the barn builders who was redoing his roof.
Probably 40-50ml thick. Stalls are floored with - IIRC - 3" decomposed granite, over 9" gravel.
Same footing in my aisle.
When new the dg felt like beach sand. It’s now compacted to concrete hardness underfoot for me, though even the 34" mini leaves a shallow hoofprint in the aisle.
Like @Foxglove , my horses are out more than in.
I feed in stalls, they use them like a run-in & spend most of their time in my pastures.
These makeshift mats got pawed through by my barefoot horses after about 5yrs, making holes & tears that caught the tines of the muckfork. So I took them out of the stalls.
I had pieces in the aisle & those are now 21yo & aside from a hole in one piece, have held up fine to horse traffic, the wheelbarrow & raking or sweeping them clean. They provide a clean dry place for vet or shoer to work.
My stalls drain well enough so there’s never ammonia stench, even though I bed by Deep Litter method* with fine shavings (used pellets for some years & they worked too).
Also like @Foxglove my barn is open to weather. Stalls face East, prevailing winds rarely come from that direction. Dutch doors at the back are left open 24/7/365.
12’ sliders at front of the barn & where it attaches to my indoor do get closed for weather, but otherwise left open in varying degrees when it’s decent for ventilation.
*Read: stalls haven’t been stripped except by attrition in years.
I pick manure daily & rake out soiled bedding, then add fresh bedding.
Because horses aren’t stalled, a 40cf bag lasts up to 2 weeks in a stall. I sometimes split a bag between 2 12X12 stalls.

I’d be inclined to get rid of the sand if possible & replace with the recommended material under the Stall Savers.
Is there a reason you don’t think fine shavings will work with them?

[Simkie]

The nice thing about mats is you rarely to never have to mess with them again, as long as they’re installed well.

[clanter]

We have Summit Protector 4’by6’ 3/4 inch rubber stall mats over concrete pavers that are set in sand over six inches of road base. These mats have been down in the stalls for over thirty years. Bedding is fine pine shaving with pellets in the pee areas

We had one horse that we had to use shredded straw as he was allergic to pine (his stall was air conditioned to help reduce the pine dust).

The stalls are used a lot, no problem with the mats at all.

We had one vet comment that the barn did not smell like urine

[Montanas_Girl]

If you don’t care whether the Stall Savers work as designed, then you can use whatever bedding you want with them. But you’ll need to be sure to use enough to soak up all the urine (not the “sprinkle of bedding” that many people do over mats).

If you want the drainage benefits of Stall Savers, then you need to repair your base and plan to use a different bedding (or be very frustrated when they quickly stop draining!).