The type of flooring you choose for your stalls is important to the health of your horse's hooves, especially if the horse is going to be confined for long periods. There are basically three possibilities for stall flooring: wood, concrete, or dirt.

Wooden floors have the obvious disadvantage that they need to be exceptionally sturdy to support a horse's weight. Keep in mind that your horse isn't going to tiptoe around the stall. The floor must be able to withstand the occasional jumping of an excited horse or the thrashing of a horse rolling in her nice clean bedding and hoisting herself to her feet again.

Urine and manure will rot wood floors amazingly quickly, and the odors will linger in the material. Although wood tends to be the least desirable choice for horse stall flooring, it can be a solid choice. Wood floors need to be very sturdy and must have a solid foundation underneath, but they can be swept completely clean, which is a huge advantage for you. You can put down rubber mats or other synthetic floor coverings designed for use with horses. These help cushion the floor and, after being covered with some type of bedding, they prevent most of the urine from making contact with the wood, thus preserving the life of the floor. However, urine will still find its way between the mats, so once or twice a year, strip out the bedding, pull up the mats, wash down the floor and the mats, and let everything dry out in the sun.

Concrete floors are definitely hard on a horse's legs because they don't give much. If this is the type of flooring you already have, it doesn't make them unusable, but covering the floor with rubber stall mats and a deep layer of bedding to cushion your horse's legs will help. Rubber mats will also help if the concrete is smooth and potentially slippery. On the other hand, concrete has two major advantages: It holds up incredibly well, and it can be hosed down and easily cleaned and disinfected.

Obviously, dirt is the most natural material for horses to stand on. It is sturdy enough to support a horse's weight but not hard enough to cause damage to a horse's legs. Depending on the type of dirt used, the urine doesn't settle on the surface for the horse to lounge around in. However, the urine does sink into the dirt, and the odor builds up. You don't have the advantage of being able to hose down a dirt floor without turning it into a mud pit. If stalls with dirt floors are deep inside the barn where they never get any sun or air circulation, the urine odor problem can become bad.

If the dirt floor does not get a lot of sun exposure, you will need to be extra diligent in cleaning out wet spots daily. It may help to strip stalls more frequently than is needed with other types of stall flooring. From time to time, you may even have to dig out some of the dirt and replace it with fresh dirt. Whenever you strip the stall and put down clean bedding, you can help the odor problem by spreading some lime or other odor-reducing products on the urine spots before putting fresh bedding down. And don't forget that urine odor is not just unpleasant; the fumes are bad for your horse's respiratory health.