Horse stall mats for chickens

[EweSheep]

I use rubber mats in my coop and loved it! Still going strong after five years of use! Now the rats made holes in them LOL!

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
You need limestone screenings to get a really fiercely-tamped surface. I would suggest, if you want to use your own gravel, that you dig the floor out a 8+" deep and tamp your own gravel in as good as you possibly can -- dampen it well first -- then top with like 4" or so of damp screenings and tamp the HECK out of them. Ideally, rent a vibrating tamper from the tool rental store, it will do a FAR FAR FAR better job than the 8" square metal plate that you whack down over and over.

This kind of stall floor will last for a few years of 'typical boarding barn' type use (where horses are in stalls all night -- but that's hardly EVER the best thing to do when you're at home and have a *choice*!). Longer if your horses live out and are only occasionally stalled. But as you say, yes, it does *gradually* erode with cleaning. Then you will have to sweep/scrape off the top layer, so you have a good organics-free surface, and put some more damp screenings on and tamp them down real good.

The older style way of doing stall flooring is with clay, tamped in well. IMO it lasts longer. Although, as a 'pee spot' develops it does develop faster and deeper and muddier than with a gravel floored stall, so there is a bit of a tradeoff.

There are various products you can use to stabilize gravel so that holes don't develop but honestly I would not recommend them, particularly if you are watching the budget. I haven't been real impressed by what I've seen of their performance. Well, unless you have a horse that is a serious paw-er. The solution there of course is to treat the HORSE, not the stall, anyway

Or you can use real stall mats, of course

(Or that "Soft-Stall" type stuff, I think there are a couple brands now, which is expensive and not always super long-lived, but NIIIICE - if I had an old or gimpy horse who for some reason had to be stalled for part of each day I would try real hard to save enough pennies for it. Uses less bedding, too).


Pat

 

[Gwirithil]

Quote:
Ooo... Thanks farmerbrown. I wouldn't have thought of that at all. That sounds like a great idea!

 

[Hoot]

I once used inter locking stall mats for a dog kennel. They worked great.

Not sure how the chickens would like them. I know they love to scratch.

 

[arlosmine]

In my area, Portland, Oregon, the farm stores have rubber matting on rolls that you can buy by the foot. It is the same material as the matts for stalls, but much lighter/less thick, and easy to handle by oneself. I designed the size of my coop/run to fit 2" inside of the footprint of the rubber matt, and the bottom timbers of the whole structure are 2X6. No critter can get between the matt and the 2X6, so it solved many problems in one fell swoop.

I just leveled the ground, rolled out the matt and started building. Cleaning the coop is easy and no animal invasions. If they try to tunnel onder, they will be on the wrong side of the matt.