Wee pooling under mats - any solutions?

[JillA]

I did wonder when I bought them but peeps said theirs were fine - mats on non draining concrete floors. I got the EVA ones with the rubber tops and fortunately they are light enough to lift easily but has anyone got a solution to stop the wee pooling underneath? It seems to be mainly at the front of the stable so not too difficult to lift and sweep it out but isn't there an easier answer?

 

[Penny Less]

When I had rubber mats I am sure there was an option to get something to seal the joins. I didn't bother in the end and my mats were incredibly heavy, the smell when I lifted them was indescribable. Some people use a sprinkling of shavings underneath to soak up errant wee, but Im not sure if it actually helped!

 

[ponydi]

Bed with wood pellets on top of the rubber effectively holds the wee and prevents it from draining through

 

[Fiona]

Used to have this problem in one stable but using pellets rather thsn shavings has solved it.

Could u put some powder disinfectant under mats?

Fiona

 

[Tapir]

Does it not depend on which type of mats you have? Ours are impermeable so no wee goes through to the floor below and we use shavings to soak up the wee. I used to work somewhere with permeable mats and those had to be lifted fairly regularly to wash out the we that had soaked through them.

 

[Feival]

I put pellets in the gaps between my matt's to soak up the wet and then lift it out, put fresh down once a month.

 

[curio]

put a layer of stalosan then sprinkle shavings underneath. stalosan neutralizes the wee so no smell and shavings makes it easier to shovel out once a weel. it worked for me before i got drainage now i just put the stalosan under to lose the smells

 

[Dry Rot]

Has the floor worn down near the door from traffic? If so, have a word with your local builders' merchant. There is some stuff for levelling concrete floors. It is quite liquid when made up, so self levels, but it cures hard. Would that help? In my humble opinion, there should be a special place in hell for builders who lay a floor for livestock housing with no fall!

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=floor+levelling+compound&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

 

[paddy555]

I did wonder when I bought them but peeps said theirs were fine - mats on non draining concrete floors. I got the EVA ones with the rubber tops and fortunately they are light enough to lift easily but has anyone got a solution to stop the wee pooling underneath? It seems to be mainly at the front of the stable so not too difficult to lift and sweep it out but isn't there an easier answer?

only 2 answers as far as I can see, one is to soak up the liquid before it has a chance to pool ie sufficient bedding to mop it up daily and clean out or deep litter.
Second is to give the liquid the chance to go somewhere. I have lots of matted stables but non would work with non draining floors unless I fully bedded them.

I would take the mats up, clean the floor and then run a hosepipe down the stable. That will show you exactly where the water pools and also where it drains. It may suggest an easy way for the floor to be rescreed to take away the pooling. Alternatively it may show you it is impossible unless you get the whole floor screed out with a better slope. Other than that it may be possible to put a drain in the deepest area where the water naturally collects and simply drain it out of the stable and into a soakaway or whatever your yard has.

 

[JillA]

Thanks all. For now I am lifting them at least every other day and using the dirty bedding to mop it all up, and reducing the salt my horse gets to hopefully reduce slightly his water intake - his next door neighbour isn't nearly as wet. Fortunately I did consider their weight when I was buying them, each one is no more than 7kg and they are fairly rigid to can lift and stand to dry.
I would get wood pellets but I struggle to get rid of wood products, I have the muck spread and softwood makes it acid. Do the straw pellets soak up as much?
Then after Christmas my neighbour is going to look at cutting herringbone into the concrete to a pipe to an outside soakaway.
You start one job and it leads to another and another and on and on and on............................

 

[MotherOfChickens]

straw or miscanthus pellets are easily as absorbent as wood pellets (I wont use wood products either, until they are rotten they leach nitrogen from the soil). I also recommend stalosan f-really good stuff for neutralising smells and harmless to all stock-I mainly use it in the hen houses but also on the floors of the stables.

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

i dont think anything is absorbent as soft wood products sadly.

our 3 are on very fine shavings(almost sawdust and shavings mix) and livery pony on shredded rape straw and that stable is the only one where wee will come out the front of the bed and run out the door, the shavings in my stables grab it and soak it up before it can run. Similarly his soaked hay residual water seems to drain right through the rape straw and come out under the mats where as on shavings i have never had a problem with soaked hay.

i think you just need a thicker layer of fine shavings or wood pellets to soak it up, i wouldnt want to encourage it to go under the mats-i lifted my 3 x stables of mats out of curiosity last week and they are all bone dry underneath, have been down 16 years and never lifted before! But they all have full thick beds on top.

 

[Annagain]

I had this problem, except it was then running out from under the door onto the yard - cue one unhappy YO (understandably!) - a layer of sawdust and a disinfectant powder (can't remember its name, sorry, but it's was a white powder that turned purple when mixed with the urine?) under the mat in the doorway stopped it and a relatively small amount soaked up lots of wee. I lifted the mat about once a fortnight, swept it up and put new sawdust down.

I've since switched to wood pellet bedding and it gets soaked up before it can seep through which is much better, but if you can't do this a small amount under the mat in the door would do the job. If you can't get sawdust - we had a local woodmill who could supply us - I'm pretty sure soaking some wood pellets would do the trick.

 

[Birker2020]

I don't understand why you have a problem. Mine were down for ten years without being moved. They were not sealed although obvioulsy closed tightly flush with each other and I used a thick bed of shavings on top (6" or more). When i moved yards and dragged them up there was staining on the concrete but other than that barely much smell and I didn't have a problem with them.

 

[JillA]

So if you are using 6" shavings, why use mats and not just put them straight on to the floor? I managed deep litter fine but with his problem soles I needed him not to be standing on damp litter and hoped the mats would provide a layer between the bedding and any damp. There is just too much damp though!

 

[paddy555]

So if you are using 6" shavings, why use mats and not just put them straight on to the floor? I managed deep litter fine but with his problem soles I needed him not to be standing on damp litter and hoped the mats would provide a layer between the bedding and any damp. There is just too much damp though!

don't worry it will be fine once you have sorted the drainage. I see you are going to cut grooves in the concrete. We have done this in some problem places with a large angle grinder and provided you study the drainage to get it going where you want it works OK. When you come to do the work make sure you move everything possible such as rugs, brushes etc well out of the way. Cutting grooves in cement produces a LOT of dust and your whole stable and any adjoining areas will be covered in fine cement dust. The more you move out of the way the less you will have to clean afterwards!!

 

[ElvisandTilly]

I had the same problem when I used rubber matting years ago. I lifted them then put loads of water on the floor to see where it puddled then with a hammer drill and a long stone drill bit drilled a drainage hole where the puddles were. Made sure the hole went further than the base so drained into the hardcore base. Every so often I would just clear the holes by lifting corner of a mat with a kebab skewer! Worked a dream!

 

[JillA]

I had the same problem when I used rubber matting years ago. I lifted them then put loads of water on the floor to see where it puddled then with a hammer drill and a long stone drill bit drilled a drainage hole where the puddles were. Made sure the hole went further than the base so drained into the hardcore base. Every so often I would just clear the holes by lifting corner of a mat with a kebab skewer! Worked a dream!

Oh that sounds a lot easier than cutting grooves and fixing a pipe through the wall, thanks

 

[ElvisandTilly]

It drained so easy and you won't have loads of cement dust to contend with! Just poke the holes clear every so often and they will keep draining. if you know where the puddles are now then it's easy enough to just drill a hole while your horse is out in the day.