Rubber matting. Smelly or not?

Fruit Loop

New Member
Sep 8, 2005
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Warwickshire
It must be getting on for 6 years ago when my mum tried rubber matting in the stables. I wasn't into riding then but I remember it well as she used to come home stinking of wee! The smell clung to everything.

... Anyway, recently as I now have my own horse to look after I've been looking into matting again, as it will cut the cost of bedding that has gone up again and also it will be easier on our little ponys legs who shares a stable with mine.

I've mentioned it to my mum but she thinks we'll have the same problems as last time. But thinking back the rubber matting before wasn't sealed and the concrete floor in the old stables wasn't very even. The owners handyman has since layed a new floor which is slightly better.


So getting back to the question. Do any of you find your rubber matting smelly? Was the problem before the fact that the matting wasn't sealed?

Thanks
 
My matting isn't sealed but I have a stable that drains well and I empty the water bucket over the floor every time I muck out. So no smells for us.
 
Yes, my OH quite frequently complains of me stinking!

I have matting that isn't sealed in a stable that doesn't drain particularly well.It drains as far as the front of the stable but only half of it can drain out of the stable so I have to lift the front mats and wash out every so often.
 
I find it can smell a bit if the drainage is poor, I empty a bucket of water under the mats regularly and we also buy a powder (stable disinfectant called stable-zone or something like that) which you put under to help combat smells and dampness. I also lift the mats every few months and wash and disinfect under them.
I did know of someone who used matting a few years back but the rubber was pourous so soaked the wee up rather than letting it run under and drain away, that stable stunk so bad you could hardly breathe in there.
 
Rubber matting always made my old RS horses STINK of wee it was foul! They smelt like horses before they put the matting in! Also used to make all us helper reek too! I think it is also unfair for horses that do so much work like they did and had no turnout to not have a nice deep bed.
 
My horse is on straw, and I stink everytime I muck out!!
However, I'm sure it would be much worse if he had rubber matting.
Also horses can suffer more with thrush on rubber mats. They are standing in their toilet! Yuck!
Atleast on a deep bed the wee soaks to the bottom, and is dry on top.
I know what I'd rather sleep on;)
 
I've got unsealed rubber matting in my stables, the drainage is quite good so the smells not to bad untill I lift them up to wash and disinfect the floor. The smell of the stale pee can then be smelt in the far distance. :eek:
 
Depends on how you manage it, some stables on my yard do smell as they have little or no bedding down to soak up the wee. I'm soft and don't like my horse lying on wet mats or in his own wee etc. so he has the back 1/2 of his stable bedded down with about 6" of shavings. He wee's on the bedding which soaks through under the shavings so he always has a nice dry, clean bed to stand in/lie on. Every morning I just skip out, take the wet shavings out and chuck all the bedding up at the sides to let the floor air during the day.

I have never had to wash my mats, my stable smells lovely and I only use about a bale of shavings a week to keep a nice, clean, cosy bed. My horse will not lie down or wee on the mats if he doesn't think there are enough shavings there :rolleyes:
 
Ditto angelfben, I use 1 bale of shavings per week and Merrick now has a reasonable bed on the back half of his stable. It's still about half the bed that other horses seem to get, but he is very comfy, lies down a lot, doesn't get covered in poo any more :rolleyes: and there is no smell at all. I muck out the usual way (wet shavings and droppings), turn the banks (very mini ones, just there because they seem to make the whole bed more stable and less likely to get dragged around everywhere), chuck everything up, and let the floor air, then pull it all back down.
It took a while to find the right quantity of shavings for this happy state of affairs :D and I can get away with 3" minimum towards the end of the week, about 6" at the start of the week. I've also found that the firmer I make the bed (levelled over and then beaten down with the back of the shavings fork :eek: ) the less wet escapes through to the floor anyway - it just gets trapped under the top layer of shavings. And this is with nasty cheap shavings, not special mega-absorbent ones :D
Just to add - my matting is concreted in place at the back and one side of the stable, but not sealed anywhere else and I have NO drainage in the stable at all. So it can work, just experiment to find the right type/quantity of shavings for your horses :)
 
like angelfben and Est, I use mats with a 6in shavings bed over about a third of them and banks, which are really only there to hold the surplus shavings. Sennie, who's very wet, has the wet shavings and poo removed every day. I use about one and a half bales a week, but as I said, he's an exceptionally wet horse. For a normal weeer:)rolleyes: ) I'd probably use one bale. No smell except when cleaning the floor and mats once a year. Then its yuk.
 
I use a modest amount of bedding too, straw with shavings scattered underneath if they're in overnight. Even with the stable in use 24 hours a day at times last winter (2 horses) when I finally got round to lifting the mats to disinfect there wasn't anything much under them other than a bit of slime, and no knockout pong :)
 
The smelliness will also depend on whether the matting is porous or non-porous. If it is porous I've found that all the liquid moves through the mats and is then left underneath to fester and does smell. The mats have to be lifted and washed out underneath fairly regularly but the horses are not standing in any liquid. If you get non-porous mats, which we have, then the liquid remains on top of the mats so the stables should only smell as much as normal ones. This type of matting needs more bedding though to soak up the liquid.
 
I have mats which are great, I lift them out in the summer and give them a scrub, otherwise just bung a bit of water down the back to keep it fresh underneath.I use straw because its cheaper and still like a decent bed to minimise stable stains, but I only cover the back half of the stable. I love mine, and think my stable smells loads better than the others who don't have it :p :D
 
Oh should have said, I bed one of mine but not the other (she just gets a sprinkle to soak up wee cause no matter how much I put in hers the whole lot is soaked by morning), the only time my horse smells is if she wee's then lays straight down before it has had time to drain/dry.
 
I disinfected some pourous rubber matting last weekend that was spare on the yard to try in Daffy's stable before we fork out £400. Now bearing in mind these mats can take 3 weeks to dry out in summer..

How many times has it rained since Sunday? Where did I have to leave the mats to dry because there was nowhere else to put them? :mad:

I'm pretty confident we'll end up shelling out £400 before those have dried - on non-pourous mats - the aim being more cushioning for Daffy's legs. We used to have the above mats (exactly that set of mats as well, I used that stable 5 years ago) and I don't remember them stinking then, although we always used a full bed on them. I just remember them being a pain in the *rse to clean. :rolleyes:
 
both mine are barefoot and they have rubber matting, altho i do use about 4 inches of shavings deep for bedding. My horses or me dont smell :)
 
I like the rubber matting and bought some second hand for Cooper.

The YOs made such a thin bed for him on concrete we were worried about him.

Now that he has the matting I still like him to have a nice thick bed and don't really use the matting as a cost saver.

We add extra bales to the bed in the evening after YOx muck out.

Will have to pile it up the day before we go DIY!
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