Field shelter question.

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proctor

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I have been lucky enough to find myself a field to rent which means no more working livery for my boy!! Anyway, the field owner is lovely enough to build me 2 field shelters which he is doing himself. At the moment there is a base, so it's not going to be mud. The base is hard to explain, its a bit stoney/sandy but quite soft, but to make life more comfy for my horse and to make my farriers life a bit easier, I was thinking of putting rubber matting down in the shelters.

Do you have any kind of flooring also do you bother with a bit of straw down in the winter so they have something to lay down in? Any info would be great, I have always been blessed with a stable up until now, so this is all a bit different for me!!!
 
If he has permission for this hard standing and field shelter, then personally I'd do it properly with concrete and put mats on top of it. Where I live, we have heavy clay soil, and mats on top of rubble, would just sink. You may be lucky and have decent soil.
 
Yes the soil is very good, quite lucky really, the floors are a bit higher than the field so they should stay dry. Also they are in the highest part of the field too. I'm just thinking of comfort!
 
I have a double field shelter and was luckily given rubber matting similar to that you get in marquees at county shows which just clipped together but rubber matting would be fine.

Personally I used shavings last year but the rain blew straight into the shelter combined with the horses slopping mud in - field shelter entrance right at ground level - it cost me a small fortune. I then used straw which the horses seemed to prefer as could see that they had been lying down in it at night etc.

I am having a piece of a small piece wood put across the entrance bottom of my shelter so the horses have to step over and it should, fingers crossed, stop them slopping so much mud in and am planning to mix straw and shavings as my youngster did seem to use it as a bedroom when the weather was bad.

I know some people just use the rubber matting and no bedding so I suppose personal preference really...
 
Straw should be cheaper than shavings (depending on the price this year). Have you thought about getting some draw bars to put over the entrance incase you need to keep him/her in for any reason. If I had no stable and was just using a filed shelter would bed down half the shelter.
 
I bed the back half of my field shelter with shavings on rubber mats. This works well but I think the thing that helps the most is that i have an overhang on the front of the shelter so it stops rain driving in.

My horse is gentle so if i want to keep him in i just put a rope across the front! Not sure that would work for many people though!
 
Because of the shortage of straw in this area I tried pea gravel (small pebbles about the size of a garden pea) in the field shelter. That worked very well as I could rake up any poo and the ponies seemed to like it. I think the cost was about £17 a tonne but I collected it using my own Landrover and trailer.
 
I have a mobile stable in my field for my horse and cannot put any sort of concrete or hardcore down as I rent the field. My field is flat and I am on clay.
I have had it for about 6 years now and use mine as a full time stable at night for my lad (it has stable doors on it so I can shut him in). I put down thick rubber mats straight onto the ground in mine and then have a cardboard bedding bed down for him. The worst that happens is I have to keep flattening the mats as the bedding works its way underneath over a period of time where he wanders around and gets up and down. But it has worked a treat for me as a stable and I have no problems with rain getting in as it has an overhang and a step into it as it is on metal skids, so this keep the bedding in!
 
So your horses actually use your field shelters! A lot of horses dont seem to use them, was thinking of getting one for mine, mainly to get them out of the heat and flies, but Im not sure they would use them !
 
Yes my lad uses his field shelter a lot in the summer to get away from the flies biting him. In the winter he rarely goes in there other than when he is shut in for the night.
 
i really do not care for field shelters.
one of my liveries put one up,the horses only used it for a few hot days,the rest of the time it was used as an itching post/chewing spot and got really boggy all the way around the outside.
they offered it to me for a small fee when they moved on but i declined.
 
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