# Mare Floods Stall With PEE!



## Tokoneki (Mar 28, 2011)

Just like the title--Scarlet pees a thousand times a day. Her stall is a mucky pool bc of it. I clean it daily. Dump pine pellets in it weekly as well as sand. But I can't keep up! 

Any suggestions on what I can use?


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## Muppetgirl (Sep 16, 2012)

Yeah that's a pain! What's she eating? Is she in season?


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## attackships (Jan 12, 2012)

my condolences! my mare does the same thing. all my horses stalls have a little "backyard" and after she would soak up the shavings she would pick a spot outside and create a huge mud mess. we would have to try to dig it out and put decomposed granite in it every week. in the picture you can see her in the background creating a swamp (peeing of course). we usually had to rotate the horses in order to try to let each stall dry. this was all with daily cleaning and replacing the shavings once a week. i couldnt keep up. i made a few changes and she still pees a lot but i have no more swamps and her stall is actually dry every day after i muck it out. 

-changed her diet from straight alfalfa to alfalfa/bermuda mix
-cemented stall floor and installed a drains under the stall mats. (we actually did this for flooding when it rains but it works great for her urine issue) 
-took away her automatic waterer. still give her plenty of water and shes never without water, but she drinks less from buckets. sometimes i think she would just play with the waterer and drink because she was bored. 
-started riding her much more and going on trails. again i think there was a boredom issue with her. 
-more turnout so she could go pee out in the pasture and not flood her stall
-adding shavings sometimes twice a week. 

dont know if this will help at all but these are the things that worked for me!


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## Tokoneki (Mar 28, 2011)

attackships said:


> my condolences! my mare does the same thing. all my horses stalls have a little "backyard" and after she would soak up the shavings she would pick a spot outside and create a huge mud mess. we would have to try to dig it out and put decomposed granite in it every week. in the picture you can see her in the background creating a swamp (peeing of course). we usually had to rotate the horses in order to try to let each stall dry. this was all with daily cleaning and replacing the shavings once a week. i couldnt keep up. i made a few changes and she still pees a lot but i have no more swamps and her stall is actually dry every day after i muck it out.
> 
> -changed her diet from straight alfalfa to alfalfa/bermuda mix
> -cemented stall floor and installed a drains under the stall mats. (we actually did this for flooding when it rains but it works great for her urine issue)
> ...


She's on Purina Senior with pasture turn out 5 nights a week and paddock turn out the other 2 nights. Not in heat. Has a salt block in her stall and a huge water bucket bc I ride her hard almost daily. Meh. 

What does the granite do?


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## attackships (Jan 12, 2012)

its just an alternative to sand. i found it was more absorbent. she could have a medical condition perhaps? worth an ask next time you see your vet.


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## Tokoneki (Mar 28, 2011)

Good point.


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## Darrin (Jul 11, 2011)

My gelding does this with free access to salt. He licks a bunch of salt, drinks a lot of water then produces a lot of pee. I moved to a granulated salt/mineral mixture that I put in his feed every nite at the recommended amount and my problem has gone away.


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## SaddleStrings (May 15, 2012)

How old is your horse, OP? Is this a new thing that has been going on with your mare? The reason I ask, is because excessive urination can signal a health problem, such as Cushings Disease. Cushing's disease usually affects older horses, especially those in late teens to early 20's. 

Just to give you some insight, I too have a horse who was an excessive peer and drinker. I had him checked by the vet, who at the time said he is perfectly fine, he just drinks out of boredom. I tried giving him toys to play with, limiting his water intake to 15 gallons a day per the vet, nothing worked. I had always suspected he may have Cushings, but my vet said he tests normal. So finally come spring this year, my gelding showed more positive symptoms of Cushings, such as slow shed out of coat, loss of muscle on top line, ect. My vet then diagnosed him with Cushing's. 

A lot of the time, a horse will only start out with one or two symptoms of Cushing's, and you wouldn't really expect it, and even if you test them, they may not have a positive reading. You know you have a Cushings horse when you start seeing multiple things going on all at once it seems like, such as the heavy hair coat, loss of muscle, laminitis, abscesses, the list goes on. 

I don't want to scare you, but just want you to be aware of what could be expected. You may want to talk to your vet.


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## AbsitVita (Aug 28, 2012)

Wow...noah's ark all over again!


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Horses that aren't on grass consume more salt than those on stall care. If her preference is to be outside she may be a bit nervous when stalled, and nervous horses pee more as it's not natural to them.


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## natisha (Jan 11, 2011)

Saddlebag said:


> Horses that aren't on grass consume more salt than those on stall care. If her preference is to be outside she may be a bit nervous when stalled, and nervous horses pee more as it's not natural to them.


? Did you mean than those on grass?


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## sillyhorses (Sep 2, 2011)

My mare, one of the boarder's geldings, and another mare have this issue. It drives us crazy. I'm pretty sure the only thing that would help in these instances is to install a cement floor with drains :/ Then you'd have to worry about the drains clogging eventually  Ughhh... I feel your pain!

With our situation, we've found that using a mix of sawdust and soft wood pellets works very well - even though they still get icky wet spots, at least it isn't as soupy... it's more like... glumpy (because, you know... glumpy is _TOTALLY_ a word  haha).


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## verona1016 (Jul 3, 2011)

My trainer has a horse that does this. She went through a bunch of testing with the vet to make sure there wasn't a medical reason, but everything came up normal. They ended up digging out her stall to improve the drainage- similar to Figure 2 in this article: Horse Stable Flooring Materials and Drainage


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

For a horse that pees in one corner my bedding choice is wheat straw. Can't always get it. I do find it superior to shavings and pellets.


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## EvilHorseOfDoom (Jun 17, 2012)

My friend had a huge problem with her little mare flooding her stall with pee. She was drinking 4 very large buckets of water a day (to the bottom) then peeing out the lot. She had a chat with the vet and he told her to cut her water back to two buckets (which is the most any of the other horses in the stable would get through, and some of them were in a lot more work than her). He was concerned it would reduce her electrolyte levels and damage her kidneys. 

The mare was drinking because she was bored (sounds like something we do lol). To prevent the boredom, we switched her lucerne chaff ration to lucerne hay (she was already getting 4 biscuits of pasture hay) and she stopped drinking her water to the bottom after a week or two. In the meantime the vet provided us with a sign letting people know we knew her water bucket was empty and that they shouldn't fill it as it was on vet's orders (still got complaints though, from some of the charming ladies in our isle).


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## pinkpony555 (Jan 13, 2013)

*peeeeee !!*

I heard of this and tried it myself-when we come in after a ride, she poops while untacking/brushing etc. Then the second she goes into her stall, she pees. I am in with her scooping & bring a smaller bucket in with me- when the warning stance begins, I hold the bucket under her !! I have read owners can train their horses to pee on cue-not too sure about that...any pee in a bucket helps.


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## EvilHorseOfDoom (Jun 17, 2012)

pinkpony555 said:


> I heard of this and tried it myself-when we come in after a ride, she poops while untacking/brushing etc. Then the second she goes into her stall, she pees. I am in with her scooping & bring a smaller bucket in with me- when the warning stance begins, I hold the bucket under her !! I have read owners can train their horses to pee on cue-not too sure about that...any pee in a bucket helps.


Most horses will generally pee in their stall rather than the aisle to avoid splashback. I knew a woman who tried (without success) to teach her mare to pee in a bucket on a whistle command. However, most racehorses pee on command as they are required to submit urine for drug testing after a race. So it's certainly possible.


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## JeniTex (Feb 7, 2013)

I can totally sympathize. I began using diatomaceous earth on the pee spots. Dries it up in a snap. Super inexpensive too! Good luck.


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## SlideStop (Dec 28, 2011)

As long as nothing is wrong physically I would overhaul the flooring on your horse stall! I found 8+ inches of pea gravel and then a stall skins liner does wonders! They say you don't need bedding, but we put it anyway.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Clayton Taffy (May 24, 2011)

This is Sunflower A.K.A. the *urinator*. What I have found out is the pellets do not work with him, they just cant keep up and I was spending soooo much money.
I moved him to the biggest stall and I use shavings and lots of them, when I go to clean I scrape all the clean shavings from the top of the wet spot, clean underneath and then spread the scraped off top part back in the pee spot. It helps for me. I think I was trying to save money by not using enough bedding and ended up adding more bedding every day. When I used more bedding to start I used less in the long run.


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## Palomine (Oct 30, 2010)

What is your stall floored with?

It may be you need to dig down and put more gravel in the center deep down so it drains better if it is dirt.

And also you need to check to make sure you aren't getting water from somewhere else, and is adding to this.


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## BigGirlsRideWarmbloods (Mar 28, 2010)

Does the stall have an attached run or is it just a stall?
It it has an attached run, decrease the bedding to nothing more than a couple handfuls and add a yard of hogs fuel to the turnout.

Horses wait until they're in their stalls because the fluffy bedding absorbs the urine splash, that burns their legs.
By moving the splash absorbing material outside you horse will urinate there instead. Rubber mats are more than comfortable enough for horses to stand an rest on. 

We add fluffy bedding because its what we as humans would want, but for horses it's excessive and unneeded. If you lay down in a pasture in the spring, it feels more like a rubber matter stall than our home mattresses.

If you don't have an attached run to your stall, your only other choice is construction to your stall as mentioned earlier, or acceptance and an investment in bedding.

Hope this helps!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## 3PaintMares (Feb 19, 2013)

I know this is a really old post but... If you haven't already, Have the Vet Check her over. Never a bad thing to have a vet come visit, even if they find nothing wrong with her, she's just a pee'er. At-least you'll know for sure. Purina Senior is a good quality feed. Purina is one of the best feeds on the market. 
We have a couple horses in our barn that could fill a swimming pool,(Vet check up is normal) When it comes to my girls: Babe pees allot, Mea poos allot and Gypsy is normal. 
For our stalls have a compacted gravel base still allows drainage with rubber mats on top. Each stall gets a mixture of Dejno's Brand of pine wood shavings and pellets. It helps control the amount the best so far with this combination. We clean the stalls everyday an most of the time it's not total clean outs, just gotta clean their messy spots. Then restock the bedding an put the pellets where their favorite pee spots are.


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