Rubber matting

[Deleted]

The only stables I've ever found that actually do drain properly were victorian ones. In those rubber mats would work well, but in every other stable I've ever had the use of and worked with the pee pools under the mats and sits there stinking. Usually the owners of horses in those and yard owners seem to get so used to the smell they can't smell it anymore and would tell you their stables are lovely and fresh when they're really not.

[donnalex]

We had ours purposefully made to drain well. All the floors slope to concrete drain gulleys and when the stables are hosed out they dry really quickly, never ever any pooling.
Even so rubber mats with no bedding would be disgusting!

[taklishim]

Even so rubber mats with no bedding would be disgusting!

no. The light dusting of shavings is to coat the dung to make it easy and clean to pick up and thus the mats stay clean. The beds are dry as the pee has gone thro the mats and has then NOT pooled but has gone down into the closed drain system and well out of the way of the stable. This is why it doesn't smell.
If you put a shavings bed on the mats it would go down the joins in the mats and block them then the pee would not be able to drain through and the surface would be wet and indeed the stable would smell.

I am afraid Michelle that the degree of smell is down to the quality of the fitting of the mats and drainage work done prior to fitting. If this is badly done, or not done at all, then you would be quite right the stable would stink to high heaven.

(note this is only about fieldguard mats)

[specialized]

We have our horses and livery horses with rubber mats on sloping floors. The stables that stink are the deep-litter ones that the liveries insist on having, ours that have a sprinkle of bedding and are swept out daily are fresh and clean. I lose count of the number of bales of bedding they use, but one of them shared a load of flax with us and she used 25 bales for one horse while we used 40 bales for our 6 stables over the same period.

[wabuska]

I expect I've only seen the old style mats at work.