Rubber mats yes or no?

So what do I do now?!

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H's mum

H's mum

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www.coligone.co.uk
Just having a conversation about rubber mats and how many people use them - Do you think they make that much difference?
Also what bedding do you use with them or indeed without them?
 
I have rubber matting and love it.

Initial cost is far outweighed by the benefits, especially as I'm paying the going rate of £8.50 a bale of shavings - thankfully, I need far fewer bales with the rubber matting!
 
Have them at the yard here, and they do my head in.
We still put down a full bed, so doesnt save any time/money in that sense, and I constantly get the fork stuck in them, and hauling them about to clean under them is a pain.

We have both shavings and straw beds.
 
I've shifted the matting that is exposed because Star gets thrush when she's stood on it. Strange but true.

They do make mucking out easier, but she still gets a proper bed because she gets so dirty.
 
I have mats for three of mine and am just in the process of buying them for Oliver, now that he's moved into a new stable.

I have two bedded on straw, two on shavings. I much prefer the mats. You still need a deep straw bed, can't scrimp on bedding there otherwise it runs through the mats. However, I much prefer knowing that if they have a good old roll in the night they can't displace all of their bed and be lying on the concrete.
 
We have rubber matting in all boxes but I still have a bed of shavings (4inches), during the day I bank the beds up so they stand on rubber matting which saves work and money. Wouldn't use solely rubber matting as one of my horses rolled and slightly capped her hock and we lost the end of last season!!
 
My stable has rubber matting, used shavings on it before and now use straw.

I use a thick bed anyway, so not that much difference in amount of bedding/cost, but it's good to know there's a bit of extra 'padding' underneath.
 
Totally revolutionised the way I can keep my horse. The outlay was large £300 odd, and I still use 2 bales of shavings a week.

But I find it such an easy way to keep him. Especially as he's not the cleanest of horses.
 
I have mats and they save me a fortune on bedding. I only put bedding down at all in the stable to make me feel better! :-) But the mats were worth every penny!
 
My mares so dirty she gets a little shavings bed that I can scrap the next day, I tried deep littering her before matting but was disgusting within a fortnight

Wouldn't be without them for her!
 
I'm a big fan of rubber mats, provided they are the right ones!

A good mat should, for me, have good drainage channels on the underside and should be at least 17mm, with a top surface that doesn't drive you completely mad, like the ones with really pronounced bubble-tops as they are such a pain to sweep properly.

They need to not budge, and give adequate support without being too hard or too squishy.

The perfect mats for me are Equimats, and if anyone is thinking about buying mats and is put off by the price, then buy them if you can stretch to it, because they are so fantastic. Cheap mats still cost £££ to fit out a box, so it's a false economy to buy poor quality mats just because the initial outlay is less.

I couldn't afford to fit out my box (about 15.5 x 13.5) with Equimats, so went with croc-top mats from horsemat.co.uk and have found them to be very good value for money.

I have mats at the front of the box, with Bliss bedding at the back. When I get my bonus, I'm fitting out the rest of the box with them, as idiot horse has taken to burrowing in the night and then seemingly rubbing himself in a manic style against the concrete, resulting in patchwork-pony
mad.gif
 
I love my mats. They are Tylyne and sealed, so never come up. I was using shavings but now switched to straw and it is now costing me just £2 a week.
 
I have rubber mats covering the front half of both my stables. The original floors of the stables are cobbles, which makes it hard to get a full floor of rubber matting down.
In Red's stable, I have the rubber mats that people put down under childrens swings etc- they're about 3'' deep and approx 2'x2' in size. Although they are really heavy, they don't shift, and Red seems to lay on them, not his straw bed. Best thing abouth them though, was that I got given them- so they were FREE!
In Solo's stable I have large 6'x4' 18mm thick mats- I don't know what type they were, but they were £23 a mat and have drainage grooves on one side, with a circular pattern on the other.
I use a full straw bed for both horses- but have quite a large area of the mats exposed, with no beddign on- as I said, Red lays on them and Solo does like to stand on them.
If I could afford it, and my flooring wasn't cobbles- I'd have both boxes fully rubber matted- I like the thought of the Rubber protecting my boys' legs!
 
I have them in all the stables so all my liveries have them. We all use Natures Best pelleted wood bedding and all have a variety of bed sizes. My old boy has a huge deep bed, about 6 inches deep and the full floor. My yearling has a tiny bed which I clear out every day. My two in work boys have a half floor bed about 4 inches deep. Some of the liveries have full beds, some have corner beds so all depends on how clean they are
 
Ours are on mats with a sprinkle of straw, its absorbant enough to soak up the wet and they have enough straw to give them some comfort.
 
I have full mats in one stable with a full bed of straw on it, the other only has mats at the front at the moment with a deep shavings bed at the back. He is really clean and I skip out all week and put one bale in at the weekend when I take out the wet. TBH even if he had full mats I would keep the same system so probably not really worth the investment!
 
I use shavings on mats at the mo although I have been using the chipmunk stuff which is straw and shavings to cut costs. Out of preference I would use cardboard or paper but it is hard to get hold of at times. So I use any of those. I prefer cardboard or paper, if I can get it, as it is far less dusty.
 
I have rubber matting but still put down a decent bed with banks.

People say you dont need banks with matts but i always have them.

People i know also only use a sprinkling of shavings but the horse is scared to have a pee for fear of splashing them selves, then have to lay in their pee.

Some of the stables with matts at our yard somtimes get a river of pee that comes out the door and down the yard!
Yuck!
That is a sure sigh there isnt enough shavings to soak up the pee and poo.
 
[ QUOTE ]


Some of the stables with matts at our yard somtimes get a river of pee that comes out the door and down the yard!
Yuck!
That is a sure sigh there isnt enough shavings to soak up the pee and poo.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or they have one like mine - she has never been one to wee in her stable, even when she had 12" deep shavings beds. Now on mats, she still waits to wee, or if she has to wee, she wees off the shavings.....

I use 2-3" of bedding in the back half of my stable, and because she is so tidy I use approx one bale every 2-3 weeks.

My filly is more disgusting, but is now on deep litter straw until she gets her grown up stable, where she will have mats and shavings.
 
I just use one mat at the doorway where there's no bedding.

I did have most of the stable fitted with mats (the cheaper black ones) but because of poor drainage the wee just used to collect under them, puddle and start to smell. I ended up using more bedding and having to take more muck out with the mats than without. This was with a fairly decent bed too. I use easibed bedding so it's not the most absorbent at the best of times; if I could use shavings or straw then I'd probably use the mats again.
 
I have mats in our stable (my shelter is too big to fill with them as pricey). As I use the stable basically as a field shelter (ie. door left open all the time) the matts are perfect for this. Bedding would get ruined straight away with ponies waltzing in and out so couldnt live without the matting. They are perfectly happy to lie on them too. If I keep a horse in (for a show or something) then I just put a small square of shavings down for them to pee on.
 
I was a hater of mats until I got given some... love them now!! I still have a "bed" down but its just not as huge, and it really is fab. Ive moved yards and have Equimats now, which are AMAZING, so much softer. I use wood pellets as beding. I did find without enough bed he did smell from lying in pee, but its got alot better with a bigger bed!
 
I bought some, but because my stable doesnt slope they didnt 'drain' so i had to use more straw to soak up the wee. Even then he'd be standing in sodden straw by morning and he got thrush
frown.gif


I've now reverted back to semi deep littering which suits him and me. The top layer is ALWAYS dry (I only remove the poos daily, and the wee once or twice a week) and if anything is quicker than rubber matting (during the week anyway).
 
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