Horse stall mats for chickens

[Gwirithil]

It occurred to me this morning that those of you with actual barns, especially with dirt floors, might be interested in the stall mats. My parents raise performance Arabians and board dressage horses, and they host riding clinics. They needed a stall floor surface that could be easily disinfected when a new horse came in for a riding clinic (my mom is very, very careful with keeping her barn clean). They're not inexpensive (I think @ $50 for a 4x6 mat), but for barn floor areas that you want as quarantine areas or to keep a dirt floor from gradually ending up with holes in it... well, I thought they might be a good idea for you all if you haven't heard of them before.

 

[patandchickens]

Used conveyor belt matting might be even better, b/c cheaper. It is not good for horse use but if not frayed at the edges is fine for chickens. You do have to make sure it is laid on a VERY FLAT, VERY WELL COMPACTED bed of screenings (same as real horse stall mats) (or on concrete of course).

Pat

 

[nightshade]

Okay so used conveyor belt is no good for horses? How come? I am really glade I read this because I was going to get some in the spring for in the new barn .

 

[al6517]

When I installed some rubber matts in my horse stalls, I found 4'x8' 3/4" thick recyled rubber matt for $ 30.00 ea, a good deal I thought and very durable. I found them at attwoods.

AL

 

[farmerbrown]

We buy that stuff buy the roll that comes out of large manufacturing plants so I will give a few problems that I have found. These mats do have great uses on a farm. To put on the floor for large animals is not one of them.

You don’t know what type of plant it was used in so you have no idea what chemicals are on / in them.
Depending on the finish they get slick as snot when wet.
To get them flat can take work because they have been rolled up for who knows how long. Putting them in the hot sun helps but if it’s thick and has a lot of wire inside of the rubber then good luck because you will need more then just time.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
They are slippery under hooves (many are *quite* slippery), no matter whether wet or dry. Also you can't get good tight butt joints (and they shift around like the blazes anyhow, even on a slab floor) so that cruddy damp bedding quite quickly works its way underneath and begins to stink. Oddly, as easily as they shift around to allow the crud to get *under* them, it is not at all easy to get them up to temporarily *fix* the problem!

It is really, really, really worth poppin' for Actual Stall Mats if you want mats at all. And make sure they are installed over a very flat, very well compacted screenings base (well, or flat concrete slab of course). And, with the exception that they do make concrete a more acceptible flooring for horses, you still need to use pretty much as much bedding as you would've without the mats. Or more, since they don't drain. (The significance of this depends on the barn, the soil, and the particular horses)

Frankly, unless you have a concrete slab (in which case you NEED either mats or those rubber cushion flooring systems), I'd just skip the mats. The horses should probably not be in their stalls much *anyhow*, and thus a well-tamped clay floor will last a long, long time.

JME,

Pat

 

[Alley]

I use these mats in my coop and I love them. I put a mixture of hay and straw on top of the mat and my girls are happy and it's very easy to clean. They are also good when used with with shavings. The coop stays dry and all I have to do is sweep it out when it's dirty. My girls scratch, and peck around in there around and it does not hurt the mat.

I also have them in the barn and I haven't had a problem with them shifting or causing odor.

 

[Gwirithil]

Stall mats are good for really high biosecurity if you happen to have a barn where animals come and go frequently. My parents host public events in their barn, so they needed to be able to disinfect the stalls thoroughly and quickly between occupants - sometimes there are two different horses who cycle through a stall during a riding clinic day (used to tack up and as a place for the horse to wait if it's pouring rain) and then one of their colts is back in it at night coming in from pasture.

In college it was me sweeping out the stalls and spraying them between horses, which is what made me wonder about their use for poultry. Thanks for the input, everybody!

[Quick addition - they're not going to be good for raised coops. Too heavy! If you've got a floor off the ground, linoleum is probably a lot more practical for chickens - and much cheaper!]

 

[farmerbrown]

I like the roofing stuff they use on mobile homes. It’s a think rubber type stuff that’s 3 / 16” thick and you glue it down. Contact adhesive works well for gluing it down. It is cheap if you want scraps and will do some work on a phone to get them.

I got a pickup full of scraps one time for $20. The smallest chunk was 4’ by 10’ that he saved for me. He tried to sell me a roll that would fit a single wide for $100 because it has a rip in the center of it.

Linoleum is good but gets brittle in a few years depending on the UV rays and weather.

 

[nightshade]

cool thanks for the info. I was orginally thinking packed gravel for the horse stalls because we have an old bank gravel pit on the property. But I was concerned with scrapping the gravel up with the bedding when I cleaned stalls and I really didn't want it in my compost. Is there anything I could put between the gravel and sawdust to make it less likely to gather the gravel up? Or should it be okay as long as I go over it with a tamper a bunch?