Help!! Stall grids & rubber mat overkill? Save my marriage!

faye · 03-05-2012, 12:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maura

I have never kept horses in the UK, and I confess, keeping horses on concrete, even with matting on top, seems odd and counterintuitive to me. They only time I've ever seen stalls on concrete is in a converted dairy barn. Just doesn't seem to make sense to me if you're building a horse specific facility from the ground up, but that may be my American bias. Now, if you had permanent drains installed in the middle of each concrete floor, and then put matting on top of that, that would make tons of sense.

I do agree that you could probably mitigate any of the bad effects of the concrete flooring with matting and bedding, but it's not enough to persuade me to start with concrete by choice.

If you are designing it for horses you should slope a concrete floor normaly towards the back by about an inch and then there is a drain a there. Mind you with a half decent bed veryy little ends up in the drain.

Why is it good to have horses lieing on years and years worth of old urine? Even if it is well drained it wont take away all of it. Doesnt the ammonia smell get to you? I personaly could muck out in my work clothes and then go to work and no one would know (if I managed to keep the hay out of my hair that is!)
My pony is on concrete with mats and hemp bedding but he a lot of horses are just straight on the concrete with a nice deep bed of straw/shavings/hemp/paper.

As I saidn, in the UK I have only once seen a non concrete floor for horses and it was a mess. Even the brand new multimillion �� Equestrian centre at kingsbarn (�10million spent on he arenas alone) had the horses on concrete with rubber.

maura · 03-05-2012, 08:10 AM

Faye,

Part of good stall maintenence in the US is stripping stalls to bare earth twice a year, spring and fall, and letting the floors air dry completely. I did this at the same time I powerwashed the barn for dust and cob webs. It was a great way to allow the floors to resettle and dry as well as controllng dust in the barn. You needed a solid of week of good weather to to do it properly though.

I was also a big beleiver in leaving the bedding pulled back from the wet spots while the horses were out, and rebedding right before they came in to allow maximum drying time, as well as using a lot of lime on the stalls to speed drying.

In a well run barn, it is not difficult to maintain clay or stone dust floors at all. In a barn were the muckers don't do a good job, or the stalls aren't done to the bottom each day, or the horses are in more than 12 - 14 hours a day, yes, then it does get messy, but that's would probably be the case no matter where you are.

I suspect if I had concrete floors like you describe, graded and with a drain, I would feel differently, but again, the only experience I had with them is converted dairy barns and it was an ongoing maintenence problem.

I am sure a lot of this does have to do with what you're used to and what's available and customary locally.

Now, how does everyone feel about barn aisle flooring? I greatly dislike concrete or asphalt (Macadam to our British friends, I think) because I've just seen too many shod horses skate on that footing. If I couldn't have mats or rubberized footing, I think I would prefer tamped bluestone or graveldust. Little more work to wet, rake and keep tidy, but easier on feet and legs and less risk of skating.

Western Gal · 03-05-2012, 08:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maura

faye,

Part of good stall maintenence in the US is stripping stalls to bare earth twice a year, spring and fall, and letting the floors air dry completely. I did this at the same time I powerwashed the barn for dust and cob webs. It was a great way to allow the floors to resettle and dry as well as controllng dust in the barn. You needed a solid of week of good weather to to do it properly though.

I was also a big beleiver in leaving the bedding pulled back from the wet spots while the horses were out, and rebedding right before they came in to allow maximum drying time, as well as using a lot of lime on the stalls to speed drying.

In a well run barn, it is not difficult to maintain clay or stone dust floors at all. In a barn were the muckers don't do a good job, or the stalls aren't done to the bottom each day, or the horses are in more than 12 - 14 hours a day, yes, then it does get messy, but that's would probably be the case no matter where you are.

I suspect if I had concrete floors like you describe, graded and with a drain, I would feel differently, but again, the only experience I had with them is converted dairy barns and it was an ongoing maintenence problem.

I am sure a lot of this does have to do with what you're used to and what's available and customary locally.

Now, how does everyone feel about barn aisle flooring? I greatly dislike concrete or asphalt (Macadam to our British friends, I think) because I've just seen too many shod horses skate on that footing. If I couldn't have mats or rubberized footing, I think I would prefer tamped bluestone or graveldust. Little more work to wet, rake and keep tidy, but easier on feet and legs and less risk of skating.

I have concrete aisle with a Heavy brush pattern so there is traction. I have had it for 5 years now without any fatalities. :)

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