rubber mats and filthy filly!

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Jesstickle

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My little nitty is quite wet and churns her bed up like you wouldn't believe. She is on wood pellets at the moment but I am still having a heck of a time keeping her clean. She has a mirror in her stable but I'm thinking of getting her some toys as well to try and control the night time churning!

Would it work to give her less of a bed on top of mats so I can just chuck the whole lot out every week and start over? I am currently chucking out a full thick bed every week which I can do without frankly!

Where is the best place to get mats from and what do I actually need to look for? How much do they cost? I'd like to keeps expenditure as low as possible really as am filling the squeeze at the moment, also any good toys to give her to play with?


Any thoughts gratefully received!
 
My friends mare is horrendous, friend has had to accept she cant keep her bed all nice and clean and now has mats with a bale of shavings. She poo picks daily as best she can as they are scattered everywhere and she spreads he wee all over. She has to remove it all every few days and start again. The bigger the bed, the worse it is :(
 
instead of spreading shavings over the floor on top of the mats, just put a couple of bucketfulls of them in a pile in the middle of the floor. she can then spread them at her leisure, or she may just use them as a bed and curl up on top of them. worked for a really dirty girl i had once. Give her a couple of cardboard boxes to trash, a football, apples in water etc, to keep her occupied, and if you use haynets, use a small holed one to make it fiddlier for her to get her hay/lage.

if you really want to save money, collect old newspapers and just rip them into strips and pile this instead of shavings. cost free, just time consuming but can be done in front of telly/puter.
 
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My mare is the filthiest mare in the world and to top it all she is a fleabitten grey. I was using 3 - 4 bags of bedding a week to try and keep her clean. Swapped a couple of years ago to Easimats (34mm) and have saved a fortune. Ok, they are not the cheapest mats on the market but are the thickest I found. I only put bedding in as it is required to soak up the wee. She is still dirty (she always has pooh stains on her head) but at least now it's manageable.
 
micramadam said:
My mare is the filthiest mare in the world and to top it all she is a fleabitten grey. I was using 3 - 4 bags of bedding a week to try and keep her clean. Swapped a couple of years ago to Easimats (34mm) and have saved a fortune. Ok, they are not the cheapest mats on the market but are the thickest I found. I only put bedding in as it is required to soak up the wee. She is still dirty (she always has pooh stains on her head) but at least now it's manageable.
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mine is grey too. Steel grey now but greying out so quickly she will probably be white next year! Why is it always the grey ones?!
 
Unless your stable has good drainage and you can hosepipe underneath the rubber mats: don't do it!!!! My stable has hopeless drainage, but stupidly I put rubber mats in thinking I was doing myself a favour and would spend less on bedding. I've just taken them all out (kn@ckered myself doing it!) coz all I ended up with was a stinky horrible stable.

Now I've got no stable mats I've got a (reasonably) sweet smelling stable!
 
I feel your pain, my mare is totally greyed out and is absolutely stinking filthy in her stable, i've tried her on everything possibe and nothing works any better, so I now go for the cheapest option which is rubber matting with a couple of sections of straw on top, I then take the whole lot out every morning, let it dry a bit while shes out in the day then chuck another couple of sections down at night.
 
There's no drainage in our stables either but if you put them down so that they fit tight against each other there isn't a problem with stinky stables. We have no problem at all with smell even in the summer. I suppose it depends on the type of mat.
 
MiJodsR2BlinkinTite said:
Unless your stable has good drainage and you can hosepipe underneath the rubber mats: don't do it!!!! My stable has hopeless drainage, but stupidly I put rubber mats in thinking I was doing myself a favour and would spend less on bedding. I've just taken them all out (kn@ckered myself doing it!) coz all I ended up with was a stinky horrible stable.

Now I've got no stable mats I've got a (reasonably) sweet smelling stable!
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My stable drains reasonably well fortunately. It slopes down to a drain at the front and has a couple of grooves cut in it as well. Was originally built as pig pens so is designed to deal with something even more grotty than my filly!

OH is quite handy. Perhaps he can seal the gaps with silicone or something? Dunno if that is the worst idea ever.

Woodpellets are pretty amazing at soaking up wee so I would hope they'd catch the worst of it. I just have the problem of her churning the dirty smelly ones in with the clean so I end up chucking out loads.

Should have given me a shout and I'd have come helped you move them! Even though my back is utterly knackered!
 
devilwoman said:
I feel your pain, my mare is totally greyed out and is absolutely stinking filthy in her stable, i've tried her on everything possibe and nothing works any better, so I now go for the cheapest option which is rubber matting with a couple of sections of straw on top, I then take the whole lot out every morning, let it dry a bit while shes out in the day then chuck another couple of sections down at night.
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clearly it is a grey horse thing then!
 
Forget your rubber mats and deep litter with a starter of six bales of woodflakes.Let it pack down,skip out twice daily and just remove the wet bottom middle bit every couple of weeks.At that time also move the outer into the middle,bank up really well.
 
EAST KENT said:
Forget your rubber mats and deep litter with a starter of six bales of woodflakes.Let it pack down,skip out twice daily and just remove the wet bottom middle bit every couple of weeks.At that time also move the outer into the middle,bank up really well.
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I don't think anything would pack down with her?! She seems to be able to dig for england. I'm hoping she'll grow out of it one day as she is only a baby. Probably hugely over optimistic though :(
 
EAST KENT said:
Forget your rubber mats and deep litter with a starter of six bales of woodflakes.Let it pack down,skip out twice daily and just remove the wet bottom middle bit every couple of weeks.At that time also move the outer into the middle,bank up really well.
Click to expand...

I was going to say deep litter also :).
Putting very little bed in is false economy as you end up having to clear it out daily.
Put a great thick base in, yes, it'll cost quite a bit to start, but then you'll probably only have to use a bale a week to sprinkle on top.

I tended to do the wet on a weekly basis but see how it goes.

Plus, a small amount of bedding makes for a stinky horse or rugs if she wears them.
 
What is the best thing to deep litter her on? Straw is a no go. Wood pellets (even though her bed was massive to begin with) also a no go. Shavings? I hate mucking out shavings beds but I could get over it if it meant she wasn't always so filthy!
 
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