Horses messier with rubber matting!??

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1985

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Did anyone try rubber matting under thier horses normal bed (shavings) and find them to be in fact messier then they were without? Im finding this now, didn't expect it but his bed is really wet and quite frankly filthy! I'm moritified, I always do a full muck out and like thier beds looking tip top and cosy!! (Slight obsession!). But now it looks yrashed and really dark all the time, no matter if I've put shavings down the night before. Anyone else found this??
 
Not really my mare is usually very very dirty and wet, but since she's been on matting she's been quite clean and dry, she has lovely shavings bed on top, If she stays in during day, i lift the bed up but leave enough bedding down for wee to be soaked up, so it's quicker to skip out at night then pull her bed down again.

I love matting
 
If you are putting in less shavings than you used to because you now have mats then it will always be dirtier. The mats dont make the wee go away!
 
Yes, my IDxWB is messier on rubber matting to the point that I have just sold it too one of my liveries as I can't go through another winter like last, the other two are fine on rubber matting but he is an absolute nightmare.
 
Because even if you have the rubber matting sealed and layed properly the water is held underneath the rubber matting and does seap back through, thus making the bedding wetter and this means you use more bedding at least with concrete you can sweep away the wee and put stablezone down to dry up. I did try using stable zone on the rubber matting where the joins where but when you have a horse that wee's a lot rubber matting makes them messier.
 
tbh it sounds to me like people are not using enough bedding. Ive bedded all sorts of horses on all sorts of absorbant beds, matted and over concrete and I have never had a problem with wee either running/puddling on the floor or underneath a mat.

I could understand it if people were using straw, its a drainage bed, but shavings and the like are absorbant and shouldnt be leaching out.

Im confuddled to be honest!
 
I mentioned I had this problem and alot of it did stem from the fact that the stable itself had poor drainage.

As far as I understand that's why the grooves are there to allow any liquid to drain but if your stable is poorly designed it might not.

If anything did drain through it had nowhere to go and as there was no bedding under the mat it didn't absorb but sat there.

I would start a new bed with 3 bales of Hunters and I was using 4 bales of Hunters a week to keep it to a good depth so wasn't exactly skimping on bedding but as he moved around and got up and lay down he created gaps in the shavings where wet would drain through really quickly.
Also if your horse pees in the same place and pees several times in the night then that amount of liquid in a small area would be too much for even a decent bed of shavings to absorb so some drains through.

It was better with Aquamax which once activated didn't move as much - but we were on 3 1/2 bags of that per week alot more than their recommendation of one bag a week.

I've now moved yards and am on Straw with no mats in a well drained stable which works best for him. His feet dried out and improved within a week.

Ah they joys of owning a horse who is legendary when it comes to being dirty but at least with straw which as spaniel said drains, the horror is hidden underneath.
He also buries poos in his banks for me to find.
 
Thanks for the polite replies, glad to know it's not just mine, and i most certainly DO use enough shavings for my horse, what a mean thing to say! This was just a light hearted post, ease up a bit! How on earth can he be messier? Because I've just said he is messier! Blimey... lol
 
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