Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: Vivian Creigh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Mary Thurman5/7/01 7:42 [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Nowadays people use rubber stall mats over concrete > floors very successfully. Where we live in Western > Washington we have wood floors, with bedding. A > training stable where we have kept horses from time to > time has concrete floors with thick rubber mats. The > horses we kept there did just as well as they did at > home on wood floors. I wonder, though, would concrete > floors be prone to 'frost heave' in the "frozen > North"? I have stalls both on concrete and on clay both covered with thick , heavy mats. I bed with sawdust or shavings, straw for foaling mares. My ponies, Welsh, Fjords and TBs are always in at night and none have problems. The mats on cement are 13 years old and have been cut in so they fit exactly with no gaps, they never smell and are much easier to clean and maintain The clay shifts under the mats no matter what we do and the urine gets into the clay and stinks. In the summer I have to strip and lime the clay stalls way to often for my back as it is heavy intense, time consuming work. I live in VT where it gets pretty darn cold and we have never had problems with heaving or cracking. Good luck. -- Looking at the future with an eye on the past. vivian creigh rainbow's end farm springfield, vt 05156
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Sam & Sue Banks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> We have Equustall flooring. It is pricey, but you can take it along if you move. It is a plastic framework that keeps the dirt in place and allows drainage. The only maintainance we have had to do was add a little dirt when needed to keep the squares filled so that the horses are on dirt, not on the plastic framework. Before I got Fjords, my horses would stand in the stalls and stomp flies all day, and the floor is still level. It has worked so well, my non-horsey husband is thinking about putting it on the outside of the barn where everyday traffic wears the dirt down coming into the stalls. Sue Banks Mattaponi, VA
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: Mary Thurman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --- Janne Myrdal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Wanted to get input from ya'll out there about stall > flooring. We are > building a 50 x 36 barn this summer, It will be > insulated, but not heated, . From > of old, I prefer non > concrete flooring, but with the cold winters here > etc, there may be trouble > with frozen ground etc. When we lived in Montana our ground froze HARD every winter. We had two kinds of stalls: Ones with dirt floors and ones with wood floors. The dirt floors were fine - covered with straw, of course - so long as they remained frozen. BUT when they thawed in the spring, they became the same 'muddy mess' that the surrounding thawing ground was!! The wood floors were great year round. We used straw on them for 'cushioning' and to keep them from being slippery due to frost forming on the boards during the REALLY COLD times. A neighbor once used concrete floors of an old dairy barn for horse stalls. In those days there was no such thing as a 'stall mat', so his horses always had 'sore elbows and hocks' from the pressure of lying down on concrete - even if it was bedded well. Nowadays people use rubber stall mats over concrete floors very successfully. Where we live in Western Washington we have wood floors, with bedding. A training stable where we have kept horses from time to time has concrete floors with thick rubber mats. The horses we kept there did just as well as they did at home on wood floors. I wonder, though, would concrete floors be prone to 'frost heave' in the "frozen North"? Mary = Mary Thurman Raintree Farms [EMAIL PROTECTED] Yahoo! Auctions - buy the things you want at great prices http://auctions.yahoo.com/
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Denise Delgado" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> i have concrete flooring, slanted toward the outside of the barn for drainage and rubber mats in the stalls. i let my horses have free access to the stalls from the pasture, so have never kept them "stalled" except once when my mare had a fetlock gash that had to be tended to for a week with meds and rest. she hated it, even with a thick layer of shavings. they prefer sleeping outside under a huge oak tree unless it is really cold and wet. denise in northern calif.
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: Jon & Mary Ofjord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Janne, Congratulatios on you soon to be new barn! Concrete would be nice if you can drain it - just a slight angle will do. Hosing it off is out of the question in our climate for 6 months of the year, unless, of course your horses wear ice skates. If you were to do concrete you would probably want to insulate the perimeter to help alleviate frost heave and have it on a well drained site. Our clay is impermeable to moisture, but with a layer of gravel on top (crushed limestone if you can get it) it seems to work o.k. Rubber mats are nice if you can afford them. Straw (oat) bedding has worked well for us as storage for shavings is a difficult problem for us. Yes, the horses will occasionally eat a little of it, but much prefer their hay. I have seen Mark and Lisa McGinley's place and shavings over stall mats work real well in their situation. When I was working as a builder, clients would ask if it was possible to do something a little unusual or difficult. Our answer was "yes, all it takes is more money". > >Hi form cold and rainy ND today. > Same kind of day here. A 10 degree drop in temperature would have made for some snow. Yuck! Jon
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Karen McCarthy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hey, jean I "hear you" about daily cleaning, but I am still floored at how labor intensive this seems.Yikes stripes! I am with you on the straw debate. I cannot bed my fjordies with it, lest it be all in their tummies by morning. At one of our 1st CDE's the barn manager had bedded all the stalls very deeply and banked the sides with straw. Took me a while to rake it all out before I could put Sven in there. I like nice clean, bright straw for beeding mares that are foaling, but its hard to come by as, in my neck of the woods, we get some s--- from the barley & rice growers that is so dusty it'll give ya asthma just LOOKING at it.(When I was a teeneage and worked on the track during the summer, I had to bed all the horses w/ straw. Very tedious work to clean.) We use a really nice brand of wood shavings we pick up in Bend ,Or. They come in HUGE blue bags,compressed,I think they are a full 1/3 yd. We grab 'em whenever we go thru with any room on the truck or trailer :~}They are truly screened, and have the biggest sized shavings flakes I have ever seen. We also get our rubber mats in bulk up at the factory in McMinvile, Or.They run about $27.00 apiece. Red Barn Brand. Original Message Follows From: "Jean Gayle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: fjordhorse@angus.mystery.com To: Subject: Re: Stall Flooring Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 17:07:54 -0700 This message is from: "Jean Gayle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Karen lest you misinterpret the 16 out and fourteen in. The stall was picked clean everyday. Urine would build up in the hole and by the third week, despite toppings it was time to muck the whole stall out. I would rather handle shavings and sawdust then straw. A friend of mine would just keep adding straw until it was about a foot or more thick and then muck out. He felt it kept the horse warm. I felt it killed the stall cleaner.heavy stuff and packed solid. Jean Jean Walters Gayle Aberdeen, WA [Authoress of "The Colonel's Daughter" Occupied Germany 1946 TO 1949 ] http://www.techline.com/~jgayle Three Horses Press PO Box 104 Montesano, WA 98563 -Original Message- From: Karen McCarthy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: fjordhorse@angus.mystery.com Date: Sunday, May 06, 2001 5:06 PM Subject: Re: Stall Flooring >This message is from: "Karen McCarthy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Jean Gayle wrote: >"However, it got too much for me as the complete clean was around 16 loads >out and fourteen in." > >OMG Jean!!! >I would be dead after the 1st load! >Karen > >_ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Jean Gayle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Karen lest you misinterpret the 16 out and fourteen in. The stall was picked clean everyday. Urine would build up in the hole and by the third week, despite toppings it was time to muck the whole stall out. I would rather handle shavings and sawdust then straw. A friend of mine would just keep adding straw until it was about a foot or more thick and then muck out. He felt it kept the horse warm. I felt it killed the stall cleaner.heavy stuff and packed solid. Jean Jean Walters Gayle Aberdeen, WA [Authoress of "The Colonel's Daughter" Occupied Germany 1946 TO 1949 ] http://www.techline.com/~jgayle Three Horses Press PO Box 104 Montesano, WA 98563 -Original Message- From: Karen McCarthy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: fjordhorse@angus.mystery.com Date: Sunday, May 06, 2001 5:06 PM Subject: Re: Stall Flooring >This message is from: "Karen McCarthy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Jean Gayle wrote: >"However, it got too much for me as the complete clean was around 16 loads >out and fourteen in." > >OMG Jean!!! >I would be dead after the 1st load! >Karen > >_ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Karen McCarthy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Jean Gayle wrote: "However, it got too much for me as the complete clean was around 16 loads out and fourteen in." OMG Jean!!! I would be dead after the 1st load! Karen _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Karen McCarthy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Janne, We converted an old cattle barn to a horse barn w/ 8ea. 12'x16' stalls 4 years ago.. For the flooring, we excavated about 6" of the ancient dusty manure & then replaced it with 6" of Decomposed Granite.We also used DG out in the 12' x 24' stall runs, and in the arena.(If you are in an area that doesn't have D.G., I would use 1/4" baserock with fines.)We then graded the floor to pitch about 3% from front to back. Then we watered in the DG as needed and compacted with a vibratory plate. After all this, we then fitted in and cut to size the rubber stall mats. I do not use shavings, as we have a dutch door to the outside and we leave it open most of the time, even during the Zephers we get out here. When I do bed a horse , we use the shavings VERY sparingly, just enuf for a place to pee. The rubber mats are soft enough; I have had no caped elbowsor hocks. Since it was an old cattle barn, there was a 4' wide concrete slab thet ran on both sides of the barn. This is now at the front of our stalls, and makes a great surface to feed off of. I am really happy with the DG. It absorbs moisyure really well - we don't have automatic stall waterers, so an occasional bucket gets dumped, oh well! Karen McCarthy Great Basin Fjords Carson City, NV _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Re: stall flooring
This message is from: [EMAIL PROTECTED] I have just built a new barn and after much research, I chose dirt floors and shavings for several reasons. Even though cement is easier to care for, it is still hard on the legs even with stall mats and tons of shavings.(Fjords do seem to eat straw). You can actually feel this yourself by standing in such a stall and then comparing it to the outside. The rubber mats make stall cleaning much easier but they do hold the wet shavings right there and the ammonia is more under foot and hard on hooves. And several of my horses were getting black rubber sore spots on their hocks where the rubber rubbed off the hair when they got up. The best stall material I ever had was clay. I can't find it in Ca., otherwise I would have used that. Maybe you could start with clay, native dirt or a compacted DG product and see how if works first. If you start with a cement floor, you are more or less stuck with it.
stall flooring
This message is from: "Debby Stai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Being a military family, we've moved with our horses numerous times. Sometimes finding a place to rent to keep the guys with us, most of the time boarding at a military stables. Most were dirt floors which we put shavings on, the horses loved it. The last place was cement stalls, we added rubber mats, thick ones, and a thick layer of shavings. The horses did fine, laid down but then didn't have much choice I guess as no runs off of these. Our place now is dirt floors with limestone screenings and a thick layer of shavings. I do water their stalls every so often for the dust from the screenings, the shavings are supposed to be dust free, course as they break down, I'm sure they get dusty. So far I've not had to dig out wet spots, don't know if thats because of the footing. I know when we were in Georgia with the Georgia red clay, we got terrible wet spots. If I had my rathers, I'd do the cement floors with thick rubber mats and thick shavings, especially at my own place as the guys spend most of the days out in pasture, only in at night. I've never used straw, I understand thats preferable to use when having new babies. Are there different straws, one thats best to use? Thanks. Debby
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Jean Gayle" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Janne I am sure you are aware that fjords will eat straw. I had two impactions here at the same time from some straw I brought in to cover mud. Maybe it was the "kind" of straw. I do not know but do not have it around . I had keyhole clay floors and filled the hole first with gravel for drain. Then sawdust and the rest of the stall with shavings. Best stalls I ever had, did not have to do a complete change for three weeks. However, it got too much for me as the complete clean was around 16 loads out and fourteen in. So I converted to rubber mats over gravel. The horses will not lie down on them even with shavings. So now they lie out in the mud and cold all year round. If I add shavings now they simply come in and urinate and poop on the shavings. Ugh! Congratulations on the new barn Fun. Jean Walters Gayle Aberdeen, WA [Authoress of "The Colonel's Daughter" Occupied Germany 1946 TO 1949 ] http://www.techline.com/~jgayle Three Horses Press PO Box 104 Montesano, WA 98563 -Original Message- From: Janne Myrdal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Fjord Digest Date: Sunday, May 06, 2001 9:47 AM Subject: Stall Flooring >This message is from: "Janne Myrdal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Hi form cold and rainy ND today. > >Wanted to get input from ya'll out there about stall flooring. We are >building a 50 x 36 barn this summer, I am just thrilled!! It will be >insulated, but not heated,( except the tack room which will be cozy) and >there are several local opinions on flooring. From of old, I prefer non >concrete flooring, but with the cold winters here etc, there may be trouble >with frozen ground etc. If we do concrete, we will of course use mats, and >our bedding is straw, lots of it. From past barns I am used to shavings, >but here in ND that would costy a fortune, plus I prefer straw as it seems >to suit the horses better, safer during foaling etc. Plus we have our own >free straw, bonus of being on a farm. > >Any ideas, opinions etc will be very valuable. > > Ofjords, what did you guys do up in N Minnesota??? > >Janne Myrdal
Re: Stall Flooring
This message is from: Mariposa Farm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Janne Myrdal wrote: > > > Ofjords, what did you guys do up in N Minnesota??? > > Janne Myrdal I think they dream about summer mostly! Mark My barn has clay floors and full stall mats- seems to work fine. There are some stalls with no mats and they are no fun. Even with 4"+ of "shavings" some horses will dig a hole and it takes about 1/2 hour to fix each time. I'd go with the cement floors/stallmats/bedding combo if I could afford it. It's probably the easiest to keep sanitary.
Stall Flooring
This message is from: "Janne Myrdal" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi form cold and rainy ND today. Wanted to get input from ya'll out there about stall flooring. We are building a 50 x 36 barn this summer, I am just thrilled!! It will be insulated, but not heated,( except the tack room which will be cozy) and there are several local opinions on flooring. From of old, I prefer non concrete flooring, but with the cold winters here etc, there may be trouble with frozen ground etc. If we do concrete, we will of course use mats, and our bedding is straw, lots of it. From past barns I am used to shavings, but here in ND that would costy a fortune, plus I prefer straw as it seems to suit the horses better, safer during foaling etc. Plus we have our own free straw, bonus of being on a farm. Any ideas, opinions etc will be very valuable. Ofjords, what did you guys do up in N Minnesota??? Janne Myrdal
