How To Prepare a Sand Stall Floor

A sand stall floor is a good choice for a stable because it is easy on the horse's legs and provides a lot of drainage. However, sand alone has a lot of problems. The flooring is prone to developing ruts where horses paw and walk, and horses that eat the sand with their hay and grain can develop sand colic. Sand can dry out the horses' hooves, which result in cracks and chips. Also, since sand will mix with your bedding, you will pull out a lot of sand when you clean the stalls.

Things You'll Need

  • Shovel
  • Gravel
  • Hand-tamper
  • Stall grid system, rubber pavers or mats
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Instructions

    • 1

      Dig up the topsoil to the subsoil in the stall area, removing all vegetation and roots. You don't have to worry about cracking with sand flooring, but you don't want things working up into your horse's stall.

    • 2

      Tamp down the subsoil so that it's compacted. If the floor's not physically tamped down, you'll have to wait a few months for the subsoil to compact on its own.

    • 3

      Cover the subsoil with 5 inches of gravel, then 2 inches of pea gravel. Place 4 inches of sand on top of the gravel layers. This gives your flooring good drainage, especially since this should make your stall flooring about a foot higher than the ground outside the barn.

    • 4

      Avoid the flooring being destroyed and sand getting mixed with your bedding by adding a stall grid system, rubber mats or rubber pavers on top of the sand. Before you do this, you must level the sand. Stall mats have a tendency to curl and shift on sand flooring, so install mats that cover the whole stall, or your mats will need to be moved back into place often. Stall grids and pavers are more permeable, though, which works with the drainage of the sand and will cut down on your bedding usage.

    • 5

      Add your bedding on top of the stall grid, mats or pavers. Use enough bedding, usually a couple of inches, to soak up any urine that doesn't drain through the stall flooring.