Concrete or mats, long thin bed or short wide bed

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Mole1

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Fed up with my girls bed this winter and want "all change!" for next.
Have 12x12 stable concrete floor with deep litter shavings that covers half the stable. I'm thinking about rubber matting the lot and having a small pellet bed but my mare is pretty wet and I think this will just start to smell very quickly. Another was to have mats over three quarters and the other deep litter on concrete but then seems pointless to have matting .
What worked best for your messy ponies? Need to get some more input 😊
 
my boy is a dirty nightmare, he is currently on shavings with straw banks and a layer of straw over the top, I end up taking most of the middle section of his bed out daily, he doesn't poo in one place its all over then he walks it all about.
I don't have rubber matting in these stables as they are rented so its just a concrete base.
my other pony on the other hand, poos in exactly the same pile and has one patch of wet so takes about 1 min to muck out!
I have tried all variations of bedding except wood pellets, in my stables at home I have rubber matting but still do deep large beds, think its just an ingrained comfort things for my benefit!
 
You'd think my mare has a poo mincer hidden away in her stable! It's pretty rare you find a whole poo.
I've never tried straw as she'd just eat it!
I keep thinking mats wld be a good idea but then think for the price of them I cld buy an awful lot of shavings and just do a big deep litter again arghhhhh
 
The sheer quantity of poo that my boy does makes it impossible for him to be easy to much out (alongside the fact that somehow he moves perfectly clean straw over the top so you have to dig to find it.

I have a straw bed on concrete, don't take out the wet so forms a hard base for him, and then he usually tends to poo in a semi circle about a horse-length away from the door, so I just shovel that all out and put down a new thin layer of straw. I don't have time to remove each poo and to nimble about saving every clean strand.

Whack it out and whack some more in.
 
Mine now live out (which is much easier) but when in they had rubber mats plus bedding. I only tried shavings and straw but straw was so much quicker and easier to keep really clean. Cleaning under the rubber mats was hard work as the mats were heavy.
 
I have no mats and a full wood pellet bed, must be about 6" thick and it doesn't move so he doesn't scrape his legs on the floor like he used to with shavings :) so easy to do and doesn't smell, used to be gross on shavings and mix it all up!
 
I have fully matted stables and the back half (stables are 12' wide x 18' deep) is deep wood pellet beds which I deep litter. When I had the floors concreted I had them lain with a slight fall to a drain hole. If the beds are thick enough then the pee is less likely to seep through underneath the mats. You can also put a thin layer of bedding under the mats to soak up anything that does go through.

The one thing I did find is that straw and rubber mates are a right old PIA as the pee really does seem to go under the mats,
 
Mine is fully matted with a deep pellet bed to half the stable, standard 12x12. Mine is at least 6 inches thick and solid. Non horsey people tell me that my bed doesn't smell at all, they have more astute noses than us.
 
Mole1 said:
You'd think my mare has a poo mincer hidden away in her stable! It's pretty rare you find a whole poo.
I've never tried straw as she'd just eat it!
I keep thinking mats wld be a good idea but then think for the price of them I cld buy an awful lot of shavings and just do a big deep litter again arghhhhh
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I had to laugh at the poo mincer concept! Mine can be messy and when she is, there is no discernable difference between what is bedding and what is poo. The whole lot has to come out.

Having been a lifelong straw-and-big-banks user (which new mare ate down to concrete most days), I recently changed to semi-littered miscanthus. That helped somewhat. Last week I decided to try her on matting and today (funnily enough) they arrived!

Given her tendency towards messiness, I chose 3.4cm thick EVA mats because being lighter than rubber, I can lift and clean under them in a matter of minutes, so could do it daily if need be. She still has a thin miscanthus layer over the top - I'll play by ear how much we will need to use/ what works for her but I am very impressed with the comfort aspect of EVA (another reason I chose them). They are dense enough to be hard wearing but soft enough to give nicely when she puts weight on them. They interlock, creating a horse sized mattress, insulate a lot more effectively than rubber and are far more comfortable too (according to test bouncing on the various mat types at the yard :D ).

I've started her out with just over half of her 12 x 14 stable covered with matting but if it works as I hope, then I intend to cover the lot. I'll update with a report in the morning. Fingers crossed!
 
Ooo yes report back! I tried cow mats (apt name for my mare in a stable :)) once and because she likes to have partys they moved and bedding got under them, so then did the sprinkle of shavings on them and that worked ok till I cldnt stand the grossness of it anymore and switched to deep litter.

Really good to hear what everyone has as their horsey bedroom set up
 
I have a 10x12 stable, fully matted with 35mm EVA mats, then a bed of wood pellets and shavings on top. I alternate between a big deep bed and a slightly smaller one with bigger banks depending on how much time I feel like mucking out that week, and I cover pretty much the whole stable apart from a 2x6 ft strip at the door/water bucket/haynet area. I tried her on straw with the EVA mats but the pee collected badly under them. Since switching to the pellets I've been much happier, she's been a lot drier and it takes about 15 mins to do a reasonable muck out during the week.
 
Not too messy a pony but very wet!
He has concrete floor - no lifting smelly mats! And 3/4 of his stable is about 5-6 inch deep woodpellets costs me about £6 a week! No smell yippee, so much quicker and easier!
 
We have mats with a quarter of bed pellets. Daily skip out, once or twice a week (depending on how wet horse is) full muck. Very quick, cheap and not smelly. I worked out that the cost of the mats is offset by the saving in bedding within the year.
 
OP, I think your problem is the fact that only half your floor is covered with bedding. I bet when your horse lies down, he overlaps the bed. I suggest that whatever bedding you use you spread it at a good thivckness all over the floor, which should solve a lot of your problems.
 
Mole1 said:
Fed up with my girls bed this winter and want "all change!" for next.
Have 12x12 stable concrete floor with deep litter shavings that covers half the stable. I'm thinking about rubber matting the lot and having a small pellet bed but my mare is pretty wet and I think this will just start to smell very quickly. Another was to have mats over three quarters and the other deep litter on concrete but then seems pointless to have matting .
What worked best for your messy ponies? Need to get some more input ��
Click to expand...
My mare can pee for england

Many here said wood pellets So I gave them a try

But this week decided after 8 weeks to give them up I did not find them any good as I still took the same out so her bed got thinner and thinner. I am lucky and horses are within 15 feet of my front door so skip them out at 10 pm so less morning but still plenty of pee. I have bedmas on my boy and nordic for the other two.

All my stables have rubber matting

My horses have full beds but livery horses have 1/4 beds too 1/2 beds too 3/4 beds too full beds as their choice
 
So could be an option to completely fill the stable with bedding in the hope that she'll keep it cleaner because it's bigger, hummm
 
Mole1 said:
Ooo yes report back! I tried cow mats (apt name for my mare in a stable :)) once and because she likes to have partys they moved and bedding got under them, so then did the sprinkle of shavings on them and that worked ok till I cldnt stand the grossness of it anymore and switched to deep litter.

Really good to hear what everyone has as their horsey bedroom set up
Click to expand...

Well, evening skip-out was strangely brief. There was a mole hill (intact!) to collect and a pee patch to pick up. Two forks and I was done. The mats where she hadn't pee'd were clean and dry and any wet which hadn't been absorbed, had drained off the back of the mat into the drainage channel I left and out of the stable into the external drainage gulley. The mats hadn't moved - I was impressed. She's is a heavyweight cob, so I would have forgiven some shifting!

(I wandered around aimlessly for a bit. Squeezed in an unnecessary groom and came home early :D)
 
Wow nice! Sure she's not lulling you into a false sense of security haha and will be giving these new queer things that have landed in her stable a good seeing to later?!
 
Mole1 said:
Wow nice! Sure she's not lulling you into a false sense of security haha and will be giving these new queer things that have landed in her stable a good seeing to later?!
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If past bedding experiences with my girl are anything to go by, my guess is that she will have eaten them by the morning ��.
 
HGA-12 said:
My mare can pee for england

Many here said wood pellets So I gave them a try

But this week decided after 8 weeks to give them up I did not find them any good as I still took the same out so her bed got thinner and thinner. I am lucky and horses are within 15 feet of my front door so skip them out at 10 pm so less morning but still plenty of pee. I have bedmas on my boy and nordic for the other two.

All my stables have rubber matting

My horses have full beds but livery horses have 1/4 beds too 1/2 beds too 3/4 beds too full beds as their choice
Click to expand...

What brand did you use? The most commonly available (without buying a pallet) is Verdo, these pellets are absolutely crap. Stables with this bedding are dark, damp and smelly.
 
My mare used to be the dirtiest ever - she would dig her bed and just trample everything.

We moved yards and extended the stable so now her stable is a really good size (12 x 16) I bed down the back 3/4 of the stable in straw with rubber mats - now she poo's at the very front of her bed and apart from the wet the rest is clean :)
 
I can't get a bigger stable but seems like a bigger not smaller bed cld be the way forward for next winter. Still undecided on rubber mats and whether they are worth it
 
Well my girl had one of her messiest nights yet. I'm quite glad because I got to assess the worst case scenario straight off!

I swept it all away and rinsed it down (10 mins) and replaced with a nice fresh layer of miscanthus.

Previous bedding styles would have entailed either a forty minute separation task/ removing the lot and re-starting her entire bed (again).

Today's experience leads me to believe that matting the rest of the stable is certainly the way forwards, although I know from experience that my girl genuinely doesn't mind snoozing in her own waste (even when she had a big straw bed to the front of a 12 x 14 stable). Some things can't be helped but in terms of time, cost (I could have been looking at putting in several bales today, instead of part of one) and comfort, full stable EVA looks like the way forwards for us :).
 
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Just to add - I notice nobody has mentioned cardboard bedding here. I have full cover rubber mats, then a third to half the box covered in card 6-8 inches deep. My boy poos anywhere but doesn't walk it about; he wees always on the card, and this soaks down in one fairly small area to lift out. ( my old mare had a sort of shelf at the side of her box - she nearly always pooed on this, bless her!!!).
 
Orca sounds like it all went to plan! :) can't wait to change my stable bed round and but I'm gonna have to hang on, grin and bear it till they are out for the summer and then get stuck in - it might even get a paint!!!
 
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