WHat’s under your stall mats? I have clay under rubber mats. My barn has cement footings under the outside walls. After more than 10 years, the soil under the mats has become uneven and is horrible and stinky grey - and does not drain. It does not help that my gelding pees a river (and yes he has been checked by vet.). I bed on fine shavings.
So, I am planning on adding a layer of fresh clay but wonder if there is a better option. Crushed rock that will pack? Sand?
And if anyone has an opinion about shavings vs pellets I’d like to hear bedding options too…
when I redid my stalls, I leveled and put in stone dust, then tamed extensively with a tamping machine. Then I added some quikcrete and solidified the top layer. Then let it set for a month, then added mats.
Our mats are on concrete. We use 3-4" of pellet bedding, So much easier to pick through than shavings. We pick out the wet spots several times a day and at night check.
At the previous barn we had clay dirt that was tamped and mats put over top. Definitely had a more of a urine order with that set up.
Wood, 4" of crushed limestone, and a concrete slab with a French drain. Never any smell even with only minimal maintenance.
Clay is not very porous and as long as that’s your base it will be an issue. If you remove the mats you’ll actually do better on smell as you won’t be trapping moisture under that mat where is has a chance to be a problem. You will, from time to time, have to replace some of the clay as you will lose a bit every time to strip a stall. Not much per time, mind you, but over a few years you will.
Thanks all. Clay is the “norm” here in Ocala. Thinking of using stonedust or crushed stone on top of the clay and under the mats - at least the urine will seep around and not form a puddle in one spot. As a single woman horsekeeper, I am not overly excited about digging out the clay…
Screenings. If you have lime screenings available, that tamps down to a way more sturdy surface than stonedust. I can’t believe how much my stonedust has compressed under the mats despite a really through job with the plate tamper.
Your mats should be tight enough, and with enough bedding on top, to prevent the majority of urine seepage. If you want urine to go somewhere, that’s a different setup.
Concrete. My horses are not confined to stalls but if they were I would probably make the bedding a bit deeper just to give extra cushion.
When I bought my farm the stalls were dirt floors and I dug down through layer after layer after layer of uneven, putrifiying shavings. I tried to refill and level stone dust and they just shifted and settled. Ultimately decided to go with gravel and concrete and have never regretted it.
Concrete mats stay level.Before we did concrete stall floors were dirt with mats on top. Barn was pissy smelling all the time. Pulled out mats and it was just saturated with pee under mats. Now with concrete barn doesn’t smell pissy.
Shelter is also got concrete for flooring no mats in shelter. Had mats but took them out to use in barn.
concrete was well worth doing, hired it done hubby didn’t want to mess with it.
I had mats on concrete in a little barn I was renting before I bought my place. It was gross. Even though I bedded pretty deeply with shavings the pee ran under the mats and it had nowhere to go. I pulled up the mats when I left to take them with me and they were wet and nasty on the bottom side. I used tamped down crusher-run ( screenings) under mats when I built my barn. No problems with lumpy stall floors. No pee running under the mats and pooling.
A friend did that, fought for years dirt floors, gave up and concreted it all some years ago.
Horses are doing great, stalls are staying level, he is happy with that solution.
They sell whole stall mats, cut to fit.
I think there would not be any get under those, if that is a problem for some?
Growing up where all stalls were concrete, no mats then, well bedded with straw and horses inside 24/7 and thriving, I can’t see any disadvantage to concrete.
Concrete is one more fine way to manage stall floors.
A local young, first time trainer leased a barn that was all concrete.
First he did, took the concrete out of the stalls.
There was a pile of concrete chunks out there to show for it.
I talked to him later and he said that was the most idiotic thing he ever did.
The concrete floor stalls were just fine, horses did fine.
They were much better all around than the floors he had now.
He was sorry he ever did that.
I say, put whatever you like when you build or remodel.
Do consider carefully, if you already have concrete, if it makes sense to tear that for something else that may after all not gain you and your horses any better flooring.
Pee will be disappearing under your mats, as you do not have absorbent bedding on top of them. You are creating a putrifying mess underneath that will eventually make itself apparent. You are also providing material for rodent freeways.
Yes, definitely. The issue isn’t the concrete, it’s the bedding. Pee is still going between mats when there is stone dust underneath…and just because it doesn’t stink yet doesn’t mean it won’t eventually. One reason I hate shavings - they just don’t absorb well. Pellets are much better. I recently had to buy shavings because there were no pellets at TSC and I was out…ugh. I remember now why I hate them.
Hard to use and not absorbent. When I got my pellet bedding replenished I still had some good shavings in the stalls so I have a mixture. If I had to confine horses for any length of time I would probably use both - the shavings make a nice bed but the pellets keep the floors dry.
I have concrete, and no issues with pee pooling under the mats. Barn smells great. Horses have 24/7 access to 60’ runs out of their stalls that they use most of the time. I bed the stalls with pelleted bedding which absorbs great. No issues here!
Pee and Rodent trenching is a real problem at the barn I am at. It would seem that a concrete flooring would solve the problem. The squirrel tunnels are a huge concern since the matting does collapse into them.
