Hardstanding & general Yard Management

[HiPo'sHuman]

Hey 👋🏼 moving onto my little sole use place this weekend, super excited! The stables were built directly onto grass and there’s no hard standing at present, spoken to YO briefly who said he’d considered hard standing but not being horsey, hadn’t really known how to proceed.

So, what would you do? I’ll need some form of hard standing around the stables as well as something on the floor - any suggestions bearing in mind that I want it to be as cheap as possible, need to speak to YO properly and move forwards from there but I might have to put money into it myself and I don’t have much to spare 😝

 

[Steerpike]

These look quite good, maybe you could put some of these down outside the stables, not sure about inside
https://www.mudcontrol.co.uk

 

[teddypops]

I have a couple of stables which are on skids, so are just on the grass. I put rubber mats down in them and they were absolutely fine, even last winter when it was so wet. I also just laid some paving slabs down in front of them. I waited until it was a little muddy then set them in the mud. Did the job well. This year they are really quite solid as the grass has grown back in between the slabs.

 

[HiPo'sHuman]

These look quite good, maybe you could put some of these down outside the stables, not sure about inside
https://www.mudcontrol.co.uk

Ooh, I'll take a look, thanks!

 

[HiPo'sHuman]

Thanks teddy pops, that's really helpful! I did think about cheap paving slabs but worried about them being uneven but like you say, it I put them on mud I should be able to get it pretty level

 

[Polos Mum]

Grass mats (with holes in) if it's not a wet area, if its wet then paving slabs - you can often find them second hand on Ebay if you can be bothered to go and collect them. People will give them away rather than pay to have them taken away.
A friend of mine had normal stable mats inside on grass and cut a few thinner ones up to make a skirt type arrangement around the inside with the mat strips nailed to the inside of the stables - this stopped gaps / uneven surface being a problem. Creating a sort of seal between the walls of the stables and flooring

 

[Fransurrey]

Thanks teddy pops, that's really helpful! I did think about cheap paving slabs but worried about them being uneven but like you say, it I put them on mud I should be able to get it pretty level

If you decide on paving slabs, you really need to put a base underneath, or they'll shift. Inside stables I'd do similar to my field shelter approach. I used old bedding to make a base, with a permeable membrane on top (weed membrane), with grass mats on top of that. Last layer is stable mats, just at the front, so if they pee on their bedding, it drains through. I am currently in a field which has a spring coming up behind the shelter and uphill, though, so you might even get away with just bedding inside! Outside I use grass mats on top of a membrane and old bedding underneath. Again, you might not need the old bedding/base if it's well draining, but grass mats alone do tend to sink and mud collects in them, meaning they're an absolute pain to shift/re-lay.

 

[meleeka]

I have paving slabs laid rough side up in my yard area and stables. You can normally find them free on FB or Gumtree. They were laid on a bed of sand but if your ground is quite level you could make do with a wooden frame and laid directly into dirt. I’d probably use mats inside stables.

 

[AmberThePony]

Our hard standing consists of a good layer of gravel with paving slabs on top in the stable and doorways, then the rest of the area is just gravel as our land is very muddy. In the stables there are rubber mats over the slabs and we have no issues with them moving or anything.

 

[Fiona]

Field mats are really good for areas like gateways and in front of stables. Put some 10mm stone down then the mats on top...

Fiona

 

[poiuytrewq]

As above i have put mats down on dirt floor. Works really well but they need to be fitted tightly and on as level as possible surface.
It also depends on the position of the stables. One place we did it they stayed bone dry, the wee seemed to drain away somewhere as the beds were so clean with minimal wet.
Now I find if it rains water comes up through the mats so not so great

 

[Blazingsaddles]

The problem with rubber matting is, if the ground gets boggy they sink. I would dig down, lay hardcore and top with coarse tarmac.

 

[Leam_Carrie]

I recently had hard standing put down in my field. The farmer used hardcore and road plannings.

 

[GoldenWillow]

In our field shelter/stables for the first couple of years we just had mats down and they were fine. We then had a very wet winter, ponies were in a bit more and in a couple of places it got squelchy with mud coming through. We lifted them, dug channels about a foot deep and wide where the mat joins were and filled with hardcore, also put a shallow layer of hardcore all over floor. It's been fine since and this will be it's 8th winter.

Outside we had grass mats for 4 years then they sank and it was getting muddy, put a shallow layer of hardcore down, put the mats on top and it's worked wel. Also have an area where we put some paving slabs down, we levelled the base but they just went straight onto earth. These have also been fine but they don't have big horses on them.