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The Product Test HorsePlay Examines
We tested the flooring in three applications for nine months: in a quarantine stall, in a run-in shed, and next to an outdoor water trough (although not designed or intended for outdoor use, some Groundmaster customers have found that the mats, when laid under several inches of topsoil or dirt, help minimize deep mud). The mats are installed over level stall floors. This means that if your stall has been "scooped out" by a pawing horse or if it has craters in it; you must level it with fill dirt and tamp it down. There must be less than an inch between the mat and the stall walls, so measuring carefully is essential. Long anchors, pounded through the flooring like oversize nails keep the edges flat and sewn (we used both inside and outside). The stall had a dirt floor, which was filled and leveled. Because it was a quarantine stall, the shelter needed a flooring that could be disinfected. Although Groundmaster has holes that fill permanently with dirt, the top surface can be spray-disinfected when necessary. The flooring provides good grip with a textured surface which looks like little pieces of sand glued to the plastic-like polyethylene floor. It’s rather hard on the hands, so you must wear gloves during installation. But once installed, the grip is very good, even after having wet bedding on it. When I saw the design, with its dimes-sized holes, I wondered if a fork would glide easily over it. But the tines did not catch in the holes, either in picking out manure or scooping wet bedding. Another concern I had about the holes is that when used directly on a solid stall floor (wood or concrete), the dirt or bedding in the holes cannot drain or be removed. However, a representative from Groundmaster Products told me that this mat is recommended only for well-draining, compacted floors, and people with concrete or asphalt floors should provide for drainage, then install a layer of compacted, leveled dirt before installing this mat. For the run-in shed, which had been six to eight inches deep with wet mud the previous winter, we first laid down small rocks, then fill dirt, then the mat bedded with sawdust. The amount of droppings in the shed indicated that the horses spent much more time in it after the flooring was installed than during the previous winter. At times, the shed was the only dry place for the horses to go, because the ground for 30 feet around the shed turned to muck and stayed that way for weeks. An interesting note is that neither of the horses using this shed lost a shoe during the muddy months, which usually result in at least one horse-shoe casualty. The piece we put in front of the water trough received the most abuse under the worst conditions. We excavated the ground, laid the mat flat, anchored it, and filled dirt over it. I always try to avoid overfilling the water trough (I have enough mud to deal with without creating more), but this area is always deepest in late winter and spring, and has the most traffic of any other single spot in the pasture. The dirt did get slushy after hard rains and melting snows (mud in Virginia is especially slippery because it’s mostly clay). However, the mud never got deep enough there to cover the sides of my shoes indicating that Groundmaster is a good soil stabilizer. I imagine using it at popular feeding areas, gate openings, and barn delivery entrances would provide good invisible support for those areas (we did not drive a truck over it, but with its tensile strength of 600,000 lbs per square foot, I imagine a piece of buried footing will not break!). Grass will even grow over it. Groundmaster comes with clear installation instructions and a short video. Installation is very easy. I recommend two people for stall installation; although the flooring is light ( a 10x10-foot piece weighs only 70 pounds). All floors are custom made to virtually any size. Order directly from Groundmaster Products, Inc. 800-411-2530.
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