Advice on Mucking out Wood Pellets Please

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Joyous70

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Can anyone offer me any advice on mucking out my wood pellet bed please?

I have a youngster who will only stand at the front of her stable nibbing away at her haynet, she will make her mess where she stands, and consequently it all gets mashed into the bed, not a problem i suppose it is all in one place, but when i come to muck her out, instead of being able to lift off the solids, i end up with one solid mess, wet & poo's combined. Consequently i am lifting around a barrow of wet out every day.

When i made the bed up i used around 15 bags of 15kg so i could bring the bed almost to the door, so i don't think that i have made it too thin.

Anyone have any advice? please:o
 
I only have a bed half way down the stable so in a 12x12, it's only 6ft from the back wall if that makes sense. That way you might encourage your horse to move around to pee and poo. I start each winter with about 8 bags so if I were you, I would take some off the top of the main bed and make bigger banks until you've taken some out. In the winter I don't add any water to the new bags I put in as I find the air is moist enough to break them down.
 
I have tried her with a bed halfway down from the back wall like you suggest, but she will not move from the doorway, consequently she stands in her own mess all night, should i just bite the bullet and keep doing it this way until she learns to use her bed? This is her first winter in to be fair she much prefers to be out, but unfortunately our fields are so bad at the moment they are spending a lot of time in.
 
I use EVA (sort of rubber) with my woodpellets. The EVA is if you like the bed, and the wood pellets are just in there to create the banks and soak up the pee especially with the one horse who is really wet. I still damp the new pellets I put in as I find they don't have chance to 'fluff' up before mucking out if I put them in and don't. Do you use a wood pellets fork? I find with mine that as a sift through and sort of 'bounce' the really wet and mixed up bed on the fork the drier stuff will fall through to re-use. It can also be useful to spread bed out thinly when you have chance as this will give it chance to 'dry out' though it is mild but windy where we live so this obviously helps.
 
I did have some rubber matting in my stable, but found that as the floor was not level, the wee all run under the mats, and as you can imagine was absolutely vile!

I currently use a fynalite wood shavings fork, it does have very thin close together tines, i bounce as you say the bed on the fork and keep the dryer stuff.

Maybe i should just put a thin sprinkling at the front where she stands, and leave the nicer thicker bed at the back, that way the wet will be soaked up with the bedding but only minimal wastage?
 
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