stalling on cement

[40yrold4her]

This year I have moved my fan room to a old insulated hog house with cement floors. They are tied with fans blowing on them, I have laid down 3/4 inch rubber stall mats from TSC with about 2-4 inches of sand on top. Is this sufficient enough to prevent joint problems? It has really cut down on fly problems as I used to have them on dirt with shavings. They have been on this floor for a month now and I have not noticed any problems but was adviced to watch out for stiffness. I let them out on dirt every night. Your input and experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

 

[shorthorns r us]

how is your odor and humidity?

 

[40yrold4her]

The humidity is pretty much in range with the current weather it is up and down every day. there is no order, I clean it out 3 times a day.

Thanks

 

[austin]

I've used sand before, and it works well. I believe that 2-4 inches should prevent any joint problems.

The only negative I discovered was that I had to change/add more sand often.  

 

[DL]

Are they ramped or on the flat? The sand is over the mats which are over the concrete - right? ? Which TSC mats are they (how thick?) How big are the calves and are they particularly straight? I really hate concrete but sometimes we don't have a choice so we do what we can. In addition as SRU says how is the heat and humidity? My guess is that if they are the really thick mats (like 1 inch) and have a couple of inches of sand you have minimized the possible adverse effects of concrete - if they are ramped you are putting more weight on the back legs which could be a problem if they are really straight,...

 

[cowz]

I've used sand before, and it works well. I believe that 2-4 inches should prevent any joint problems.

The only negative I discovered was that I had to change/add more sand often.  

We are using sand in the cooler this year.  I like how cheap it is , but hate how dirty the cattle get.  I will probably spring for cedar shavings for the last few weeks before fair.  Any one else have opinions on sand?

 

[austin]

I noticed when I first starting using it. My calves got very dirty in a such a short amount of time. Now I have to change the sand AT LEAST once a month, but it still works well for the calves IMO.

 

[DL]

I bed the barn with sand - the whole barn -we have billions of gravel pits so it is very reasonable -  then during calving I add straw as appropriate - generally the cows stay pretty clean, it is cool in this miserable weather, and I just scrape off the top layer and add more - but of course these are cows and calves not show animals ....compare dl to Paris Hilton - who would do better in sand (lol)

 

[ROAD WARRIOR]

DL - I'm sure that you would fair far better than Paris in the sand or any place else that required any real world surviveability. The worst thing I can see about bedding with sand is that if you don't get them really clean before you start clipping , the sand will really eat a set of clipper blades. I used to clip sales in the sand hills of NE and spent every night sharpening blades so we could go again in the morning, that was before we started torching and had to body clip them all.

 

[Jill]

Sand is really hard on the hair, the grit gets in and is really hard to get it all out.  We use cedar fiber, you might try a thin layer over the sand.  Our cooler is set up on a slopped cement floor with a drain in the center, there  is appox. 12 inches of cedar fiber on top of that.  2 inches of sand doesn't seem like much by the time they have kicked it around I would think you would have places with much less, is there another mat on top?

 

[40yrold4her]

I have a large stall with fans and misters. I do not have a cool room. The mats are 3/4 inch thick and I have 4 inches of sand on top of them when i first put them in and it gets moved around to 2 inches. When I have used shavings in the past with the misters on for 4 hours it seems like everything was getting saturated and then started drawing flys. Unless I totally changed bedding every other day which got expensive. The stall is a old finishing house so they are on a slope facing uphill, modest at best nothing drastic just enough to drain properly. I am blowing out the sand every night after i rinse, any other suggestions?

Thanks