Rubber matting, disinfectant

[neen]

My loan pony has just started coming in at night. He's on rubber matting, no bedding, and though it seems nice and dry in there and takes only 5 minutes to muck out :) , it does smell a bit of wee :o

So we'd like to disinfect it. What is safe to use, given that he likes to trundle his snack ball around and eat off the floor? We'll probably only disinfect it at weekends because he comes in right after we muck out.

Thanks all

[Pink's lady]

It'll be the undersides of the matting which smells, not the top, so you will really need to lift the mats and disinfect underneath it - splashing disinfectant on top won't do much good:o

If you do lift the mats Jeyes Fluid is exellent.

[Wally]

We use FAM 30, general farm disinfectant and detergent.

Good stuff, less caustic and smelly as Jeyes.

[Jessey]

I stick a cheap regular household disinfectant diluted in an old squirty bottle and just squirt the top surface occasionally - but make sure it is totally dry before letting your chap have his snack ball on it :p
I then pull the matts out regularly and disinfect and scrub the undersides and then put Stablezone disinfectant powder down to help keep it a bit nicer under there.

[neen]

Thanks for the suggestions, folks. I was a bit worried about the noxious nature of Jeyes; unless we're lifting the mats, we'll look for something a bit milder. We'll only be doing it at weekends so there should be plenty of time for it to dry out.

Now, I wonder where you'd get farm disinfectant in London? :D

[eml]

We tend to use Virkon E which is also an antiviral when changing horses over or on annual pressure jetting.

[Yann]

Does the stable drain well? If you pile the clean bedding up out of the way and swill down with the contents of the water bucket every day it should go a long way to keeping the place smell free. Ammonia is very soluble in water.

I didn't lift my mats for 2 years and when I did there was nothing to write home about under them at all, but we have excellent drainage.

[neen]

Doh, I never thought of using plain water!

It seems to drain pretty well -- well, wee tends run forward and collect in a little puddle by the door to one side, past the end of the matting, so we just put some bedding there to soak it up. If we were sloshing water about and standing by with a broom, I'm sure we could swish it all out no problem.

Going to investigate these brand names too -- I love how they all sound like spaceships :D

[KateWooten]

Is that normal then, to use mats and no bedding at all ?

[neen]

I'd be interested to hear what people think of this. In an academic sort of way, though, because ponio didn't take to the indoor life and is now out 24/7 again :)

So now I'll never get to try all these wonderful products with names like spaceships.

As I mucked out for the last time today (hoorah!) I did think that if I were to have a horse on rubber matting again, I probably would add a sprinkling of shavings, to make it dry quicker -- but then I thought that they would just collect the wee and hold it in the bed, whereas if you have no shavings, it drains away. Better to have drier wee held in place on the matting, or let it drain freely, but obviously be a bit wet immediately post-wee? (In our case this situation was complicated by ponio's delight in finding new ways to upend the water bucket).

Oh, I'm SO glad I no longer have to think about pony wee. He can wee wherever he likes in the field. :D