crushed granite

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shelia

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I have read some posts here that say some of you use crushed granite in your stalls. So far I have only used dirt floors with stall mats. I have an area that i need to use for the minies part time and it is a large cement slab. (30 x 100) I want to use some of it for a barn. I took a couple out there and when they run on it they fall. It would cost way too much to remove, so I am trying to come up with a way that I can use it. I been thinking of covering it with about 3 inches of crushed granite. Will they injest this like sand? Will this be bad for there feet and legs? Does anybody have any ideas on how I can use this area safely?
 
The best thing to go over concrete is rubber mats. Have you ever seen actual granite? It's rock and extremely hard. I wouldn't turn out or stall anything on it. It would be fine for a driveway material but not for your horses. If you are going to build a barn on top of this slab, then I would put down rubber mats for flooring and cover with shavings.
 
We had planed on the rubber mats for inside the stall areas, but It would be terribly expensive to put rubber mats over the whole thing. I was reading about that Paddock paradise and they were talking about adding gravel, but that might just be for large horses. I think it might be a little hard on a mini. i thought I had read about people using crushed granite in there stalls because it was better for dainage.
 
If the concrete in the aisle will be too slick you can have it grooved for added traction. Most concrete companies will either offer grooving services or will be able to recommend someone who does grooving.
 
Don't use crushed granite for any place that your horses will have to walk to stand on for long periods of time. It is extremely hard and makes sharp edges/points when it is crushed. We have even had flats on our vehicles which were punctured by granite that wasn't crushed small enough. Wouldn't be a problem with finely crushed granite though.

Around here we like to use crushed gyp rock. (It is plentiful here) It crushes easily and finely, but packs really well where you can eventually drive on it even in wet weather. As previous posters mentioned I think that rubber would be the best thing to go over concrete if they will be standing on it for any amount of time. If it will just be a walkway then have it "roughed up". I know here we can rent the concrete grooving machines at our Rent City and do it ourselves. The grooves are very small and just enough to give traction.
 
I don't have crushed granite but you might be talking about this: It's called chat around here and its crushed limestone, gravels, and sand. It is pictured here in my isleway and I love it. It causes no problems to the feet, or mine, and I walk barefoot on it all the time, its very forgiving and has "give" and is also absorbant. I also use it for walk paths as well as 1/4" gravel and have for years. I wouldn't change a thing.

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I would put it on a large area such as your 30 X 100 and I have over dirt, but your problem is that it is concrete which would requires tons and tons of it to be able to cover it over and make it thick enough to do any good.

I also have a french drain in my stalls with layers of gravels, sand, chat, but again that wouldn't work for you already having concrete.

Since 30 X 100 is in concrete and you want to use that for a barn, why not draw it up as you want it and see how much the stalls would cost you to do in rubber mats? And then just mat the ones you have to use for right now and do the others as you can. Rubber mats is your best answer to cover over concrete. I don't see a way out of it unless you go for the chat base, again, which you would need several large truck loads of it and make it very deep because it packs down to nothing fast. For instance a two foot layer done with chat would pack down to about 4-6 inches very quickly, leaving a whole lot of no drainage under it as it would hit the concrete in no time.

Another alternative would be to do the same thing with dirt, tons of dirt over the concrete, layer, layer, layer, again and again, consider it will pack down, add sand, (not masonary sand), then your bedding. From experience doing it this way requires a lot of daily grunting and crabbing when you stall clean, but I did it that way for over 30 years which explains that is why I look the way I do now, all frazzled. My face froze doing it.
 
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Is chat pretty expensive? i wonder if i can get it in my area? The Barn will be small. We plan it to be about 30 x 30. i could fence the rest of it off like it is now, But i was hoping to use it as kind of a dry lot. The gate opens to a rich green pasture and I don't want to put the older horses out there in it. I am starting to get a little pinched for space. Well, actually I have too many boys and I just don't want to get rid of any of them. The slab will be perfect for the barn and is higher than the surrrounding area so the would not get muddy in the winter. i thought about having dirt hauled in and hubby said it would just be a muddy mess in the winter.

i read somewhere that you can buy stall mats (or something similer) that are 125 feet long! Where would I find those and how much would it cost to cover it in stall mats?

This slab was here when we bought the property along with some others. The cost of have the first part taken out was unbeleivable! We decided it would be cheaper to work it into our plan. So far that's been quite a challange.
 
I thought that's what you were meaning, to have some of the cement area just outside in the paddock, not all of it incorporated into the barn floor.

I would say this is a very bad idea. There's no way I would let horses be loose on the cemented area, even with rubber matting on top of it. Be warned that rubber can be very very slippery--especially if it gets wet or cold--here in winter a rubber mat, even a ribbed one, would be about as slippery as the cement. Fresh manure, or urine, will also make it slippery. It's just too dangerous for horses to come running and run onto that cement, or rubber.

we use the front 1/3 of our barn aisle as a run in shed. It is a cement floor with a ribbed rubber mat on top. The horse in that area would come running in & hit that mat & the whole thing would slide. Or, if it didn't, he was likely to slip. So, we now have bedding (straw) on top of the rubber mat--with enough straw on it the footing is pretty good. Very good actually.

For an outdoor area like you've got I would either fence the horses off of that cement or else I would cover it with a good thick layer of sand--sand deep enough that it will keep them well off the cement and ensure good footing. Then of course it's going to give you kind of a mounding effect, and the sand will probably wash off of the cement in heavy rain--I think you will find that maintaining this area will be a neverending job if you want to keep it perfectly safe for the horses.
 
Her it is. Any suggestions on what i can use it for? There will be a barn on part of it at the far end. We thought we may eventually put the horse trailer on it and maybe make a hay storage area. What is the minimum amount of room that a stallion would need? With a small shelter of course. I could put all of the girls out there, but i would have to let the grass die and that is the front so we don't want to do that. i have already used up most of the back. Our neighbor said we could use his back pasture, but we would need to redo his fencing and i am not sure i want to borrow someone elses land. Although he wouldn't have to keep it mowed. He hates doing that.

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Be warned that rubber can be very very slippery--especially if it gets wet or cold--here in winter a rubber mat, even a ribbed one, would be about as slippery as the cement. Fresh manure, or urine, will also make it slippery. It's just too dangerous for horses to come running and run onto that cement, or rubber.

Abolutely! And without a roof.....oh oh......

Now that we have a visual........That is a nice huge space to waste so I understand. I'd put a house on there.
 
Oh, that would have made a very nice stallion pen, if only that cement wasn't there!

I can tell you that if I had that cement pad here, that would work quite nicely for a barn, a hayshed, trailer parking, dog kennel. Not a horse corral I'm afraid. That would take a lot of sand to cover that up well enough to have a horse in there.

NOw I think it would be possible to put layers of stuff on top of that to make a good footing--something along the lines of what they used to make the Olympic arena in Hong Kong
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--but I suspect that cost wise it would be cheaper to get the cement taken out than to put in that kind of footing on top of it!

Do you have some burly relatives/friends that you could con into helping you on the days you rent a jack hammer to break that all up? And then to help you load it all up and haul it away?? I know, they're likely all busy that day!
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I am on several equine hoof forums and pea gravel is an excellent choice for an area like you have. It is a tad pricey but worth it. We have used it for many years in our paddock areas....They use it under play equipment for children also. My "farrier" who is a high performance natural trimmer highly recommends it also..
 
Thanks for all of the replys. I did call a rock yard the other day to get some quotes and see what they might recomend. The guy was busy at the time and was supposed to call back but never did. He did say that crushed granite had sharp edges, but they have something else that is 1/4 inch. He said it has some give to it. Hubby seems to think it wouldn't cost more than $500.00.

When we moved here there was more cement that we had to break up and put in a nice pile and it still cost us $5,000.00 to have it hauled away!

I like the idea about the stuff for a childrens playground.

We do have another place in the back that we can fence off for a stallion but it is smaller than that. I also want to make sure I have a place to pull the girls off grass if I need to. I want to move all the girls out front and use the back for the boys. If I can get all of the girls sort of together like that then the barn we build will accomodate all of them. If I can accomplish that I can use all of the shelters I have in the back for the boys.
 

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