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 Veteran
Posts: 268
 
| We recently moved and our new barn has dirt floors. We've been going through shavings like crazy and I thought we could fill the stalls with sand so they are always on soft footing. Thoughts? Hay would be off the ground in a corner feeder. Anyone done this before? Thanks in advance! |
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 Tried and True
Posts: 21185
 
Location: Where I am happiest | Get stall mats!!! The sand will be your worst nightmare and the horses worst nightmare. When we built our new barn last fall my husband thought weshould put sand in the runs off the stalls. BIG mistake!!! We took it out and brought in gravel for the runs and we have all been happy ever since. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 512
| ThreeCorners - 2014-09-25 2:16 PM
Get stall mats!!! The sand will be your worst nightmare and the horses worst nightmare. When we built our new barn last fall my husband thought weshould put sand in the runs off the stalls. BIG mistake!!! We took it out and brought in gravel for the runs and we have all been happy ever since.
What kind of gravel did you use? We are going to possibly be putting gravel in our run-in shed |
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 Expert
Posts: 2335
Location: IL | No sand!! It attracts flys and bugs. Also you don't want them eating scraps off the sand it will cause sand colic. We lined our barn and stalls with lime. It works well, they just have to be really stripped down good and relimed once a year. We pack it down and wet it down some. I will say that my horse aren't really stalled a bunch unless it's super hot with flies or super cold out.
Edited by merdth6 2014-09-25 2:30 PM
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Tried and True
Posts: 21185
Location: Where I am happiest | Blueridgedreaming - 2014-09-25 2:18 PM ThreeCorners - 2014-09-25 2:16 PM Get stall mats!!! The sand will be your worst nightmare and the horses worst nightmare. When we built our new barn last fall my husband thought weshould put sand in the runs off the stalls. BIG mistake!!! We took it out and brought in gravel for the runs and we have all been happy ever since. What kind of gravel did you use? We are going to possibly be putting gravel in our run-in shed
Here they call it lime finds. It's just smaller crushed rock. We put it in about 8 inches thick. I clean their stalls and runs daily and I have NO mud year round. When we built the barn last year we put the gravel down in the stalls and then compacted it and put stall mats in. When we took the sand out of the runs, my husband ordered 4 more truck and trailer loads of gravel for the runs. All last winter my horses stayed high and dry and I never had to deal with any mud what so ever.  |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 330
| I'll be the voice of a different opinion.
One winter the only location we had for the horses' shelter was basically a pole barn, with a large bay about 14' wide and then the depth of the barn, probably 24' or longer. So, essentially a large stall with a regular cattle gate on the front as a door. There was a full wall on one side, and a half wall on the other.
The floor was sand, nice soft sand, not too deep, not too shallow. I found it to be great for the base in this stall. Poop didn't really freeze to it, and urine drained down nicely. It worked great for us. |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 507
Location: Texas | I have sand pens and really like them. I had problems with flooding and my horses would stand in ankle deep water....not anymore! We have had a lot of rain this week and my horses are high n dry. Pens are super easy to clean. |
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Expert
Posts: 1477
Location: In the land of peanuts and cotton | We've never havd anything other than sand. It's soft and easier to clean. We dig it out with a tractor and replace it every six months. Never had a single problem. It dries up pee so it doesn't stink like it will with shavings. It's way cheaper than shavings too. I saw where someone said it attracts flies but I've never had a problem with flies. It's not dusty either or at least what we use isn't. I wouldn't have anything else. Only time I ever use shaving is at show or when I was doing pageants on my white horse I would put them on top of the sand to keep her clean. |
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Veteran
Posts: 268
| Our old barn had doors to individual paddocks and we are hoping to do that with this one eventually. Our old barn had concrete floors with mats and the paddocks were sandy. Right now the stalls do not have runs. However, we were happy with sand in the past. Thanks for the input, would love to hear from more people! |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 367
| we had sand stalls and loved them. we cleaned then everyday and had no trouble with fly's. |
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Miss Southern Sunshine
Posts: 7427
Location: South Central Florida | I don't have a barn, just gate panel stalls. They are all sand. I was worried at first thinking about them picking up too much sand with feed dropings, but we have not had a problem. I did buy matts at Tractor Suupply and the feed buckets sit on the stall mats.
We lost our barn in 2005 with one of the hurricanes, so that's how long we have had them like that.
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Miracle in the Making
Posts: 4013
| i think sand is good depending where you live and type i rember years ago joseys had it we tried it i did not like it
i like stalls matts course its be 14 yrs since i cleaned a stall what do i know? |
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