Building an Equine Knockdown Box? Get the Flooring & Wall Padding Right

If you own horses, work in racing or breeding, or spend much time around an equine vet hospital, you probably already know what a knockdown box or recovery room is.

If not, here’s the quick version.

A knockdown box, sometimes called an induction or recovery box, is a specially built padded room used when a horse is put under general anaesthetic and, just as importantly, when it wakes back up.

Unlike us, a horse can’t just lie quietly in a hospital bed while the anaesthetic wears off. At some point, a 500 kg or 600 kg horse has to get its legs underneath it and stand.

While doing that it may roll, scramble, slip, lean heavily into a wall or make several attempts to get up.

That is why these rooms are built very differently to a normal stable.

Why equine recovery room flooring and wall padding is important

A good recovery room floor has a pretty tough job.

It needs enough cushioning to help protect the horse when it is lying down or falls against the surface. At the same time, it needs good grip when the horse starts trying to stand.

Too hard and there is very little protection.

Too soft or unstable and the horse can struggle to find its feet.

Too smooth and it can become slippery, particularly when wet.

Then there is the practical side. Equine hospitals need to be able to wash and disinfect these areas properly, so you don’t want flooring moving around, lifting at the edges or allowing urine and wash water to sit underneath it.

The walls are important for the same reason. A recovering horse can contact them with a fair bit of force, so properly padded walls give the horse another layer of protection rather than leaving it against bare concrete, blockwork or steel.

Image above: REGUPOL Ultimate Comfort Close Up

The REGUPOL Ultimate Comfort System

This is the sort of application we developed the REGUPOL Ultimate Comfort System for.

Instead of putting a standard stable mat over concrete and calling the job done, Ultimate Comfort is a built-up flooring system.

At its core is a permanently elastic 30 mm thick cushioned REGUPOL rubber comfort layer, installed beneath a durable REGUPOL Aussie Gold rubber wear surface.

The layers are fully bonded and caulked to create one secure flooring system rather than having loose mats or loose cushioning moving underneath the horse.

For knockdown and recovery rooms, a similar approach can be used to create padded wall areas as part of the overall room design.

The result is a surface with plenty of give underneath it, but with a tough, secure and highly grippy equine rubber surface on top.

Comfort without giving up grip

Making a floor soft is the easy part.

Making it soft enough to absorb impact, still giving a horse something secure and durable, and while also maintaining comfort and security for a horse to push against when it tries to stand, is much harder.

The Ultimate Comfort System separates those jobs.

The lower comfort layer provides the cushioning.

The Aussie Gold surface above it provides the hard-wearing horse contact surface, with high grip in wet and dry conditions and a finish that can be swept, scrubbed, hosed and disinfected.

Because the complete system is bonded down, there are no individual heavy mats creeping around the room and no loose rubber filling underneath the surface that can gradually move from one area to another.

That is particularly useful in a recovery room where a horse may suddenly put a lot of force through one small part of the floor while trying to get up.

Image above: REGUPOL Ultimate Comfort

Why a fully bonded system?

There are several different ways of padding an equine recovery room.

Some systems use closed-cell foam underneath a separate surface layer. Others use loose rubber crumb or filled mattresses underneath a large top cover.

They can provide cushioning, but every system has to deal with the same basic problems: keeping the cushioning where it belongs, keeping the system intact and not a maintenance headache, ensuring it's secure, and maintaining a reliable grip long-term.

With laminated closed-foam systems, the bond between the different materials is particularly tricky and can lead to delamination over time. With loose-fill mattress systems, the fill and top cover need to remain properly positioned and tensioned.

REGUPOL takes a different approach.

The Ultimate Comfort System uses permanently elastic REGUPOL rubber cushioning tiles with a fully bonded rubber wear layer on top, with all seams and joints caulked to create one continuous, comfortable, stable floor-and-wall system. There is no loose fill to redistribute, and no closed-cell foam that can be breached or delaminate. With REGUPOL, the entire system is purpose-made for horses.

For veterinary knockdown boxes and recovery rooms, where cushioning, grip, hygiene, and long-term security are all important, this is one of the strongest and most economical flooring systems available.

Image above: REGUPOL Ultimate Comfort

It is also used as a horse stable mattress system

The same idea also works extremely well as a stable mattress system.

A lot of horse owners want more than a standard 15 mm or 20 mm stable mat, particularly for horses spending long periods inside.

That might include performance and racehorses, broodmares, older horses, horses on box rest or rehabilitation, and owners who simply want a much softer stable floor.

Traditional bedding does two jobs. It keeps the stable dry and clean, but it also provides much of the cushioning that encourages a horse to lie down comfortably.

With Ultimate Comfort, a major part of that cushioning is already built into the floor. Saving owners on bedding and increasing the health and well-being of their horses.

Image above: REGUPOL Ultimate Comfort in a stable

Building or upgrading an equine knockdown box or recovery room?

If you are building a new equine knockdown box, anaesthetic recovery room, veterinary hospital area or premium stable, it is worth getting the flooring and wall protection right from the start.

REGUPOL can help with the complete flooring build-up, wall protection, adhesives and installation requirements to suit your room, existing base and how the area will be used.

Contact the REGUPOL Equine team:
https://regupol-equine.com.au/pages/contact

Or email us directly at sales@regupol-equine.com.au for pricing, samples or to have a chat about the Ultimate Comfort System for your facility.