Another bedding question!

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Hungey

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Hey guys I'm after a bit of advice. My horse is very clean and is currently on shavings but we are going through roughly a bale a week and with them being about £10 a bale its getting to expensive. I can a bale of straw for dirt cheap but my horse, as far as I know, has never been on straw. Do you think it would be okay to mix the straw and shavings together or will that just make the bed horrible? Thank you in advance! :)
 
Tern said:
you can mix shavings and straw but could you not just buy a bale of straw try it then sell if your horse does not do well on it?
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Thank you! We have piglets anyway so the straw would go to them, that's why we can get it dirt cheap. I was just wondering whether it would make the bed hard to muck out.
 
£10 a bale OMG no wonder you are looking for an alternative!

Straw and shavings are a nightmare to muck out - I tried it on one of mine! As he can only have straw based bedding he is now on bliss (Other makes available! just not in Scotland central belt!) which is finely chopped rape straw which is fab and although expensive at £8.70 (well I thought was expensive till you said you pay £10 for shavings. This is amazing he is so wet and mucky but I only use a bale a week but if yours is clean you would probably get away with half a bale.

Or a friend of mine used to use aqua pellets under her straw to soak up some of the wet - she said that worked well.

Hope that helps x
 
Is there a reason he's never been on straw, an allergy perhaps? If you can get straw so cheaply why don't you just move him onto a completely straw bed?
 
RyanJoker said:
£10 a bale OMG no wonder you are looking for an alternative!

Straw and shavings are a nightmare to muck out - I tried it on one of mine! As he can only have straw based bedding he is now on bliss (Other makes available! just not in Scotland central belt!) which is finely chopped rape straw which is fab and although expensive at £8.70 (well I thought was expensive till you said you pay £10 for shavings. This is amazing he is so wet and mucky but I only use a bale a week but if yours is clean you would probably get away with half a bale.

Or a friend of mine used to use aqua pellets under her straw to soak up some of the wet - she said that worked well.

Hope that helps x
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Thank you! The price is stupid to say the least! I will have a look into the types you suggested thank you! :)
trottingon said:
Is there a reason he's never been on straw, an allergy perhaps? If you can get straw so cheaply why don't you just move him onto a completely straw bed?
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He doesn't have an allergy but he has just always been on shavings. I didn't want to fully move him onto straw as I wanted to know how he reacted towards it, because even though the straw is dirt cheap if the straw bed went to pot then I would have to put the shavings back in and at a tenner a pop its not very appealing to me.
 
£10 a bale is extortionate! I pay £6 a bale and go through a bale a week per horse.

I cant work with straw, have tried it and every other method of bedding including paper, and always revert back to shavings. Quite a few folk on my yard use straw though and the beds look lovely and horses comfy, but never seen anyone mixing shavings and straw - imagine that would be quite messy?
 
Shutterbug said:
£10 a bale is extortionate! I pay £6 a bale and go through a bale a week per horse.

I cant work with straw, have tried it and every other method of bedding including paper, and always revert back to shavings. Quite a few folk on my yard use straw though and the beds look lovely and horses comfy, but never seen anyone mixing shavings and straw - imagine that would be quite messy?
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Its ridiculous! I've added it to the stable now so I'm going to see what its like tomorrow. If he's happy I'm going to put him on straw. Thank you! :)
 
I've mixed shavings and straw - bedmax banks with straw on top, however I found it impossible to keep them separate so ended up with a mixed bed which didn't really work. Kal is now solely on straw and while it takes me forever to muck out, my lovely jockey can do it in ten minutes ;). The trick with Kal is keeping the bed nice and deep - if I'm mean with it, it's minging in the morning, but if I keep the base nice and generous, it stays nice and clean.

Hope that helps :).

P
 
I moved onto softchip bedding as can't have nugz on straw now, and decent shavings are about £8/bale (can get fine, very dusty shavings for about £6/bale). Currently about £4-5/bale and is easier, cleaner and cheaper in the long run, but is better designed for deep littering I find.

I can't stand shavings mixed with straw personally, and straw takes me no time compared to shavings. If I could've kept on straw I would've done!
 
I am madly jealous, my horse is a filthy so and so and to keep a light and fluffy bed he is on 5 bales a week! This is either Snowflake or Bedmax. I so wish he would be fine on one bale, even if it did cost a whopping £10! And no, he is also on rubber mats, has a bed that only goes over half the stable (a bed-settee as I call it), and I would not call it hugely thick.
 
Oh thank god, someone who uses more bedding than me!

My filthy 17.2hh gelding is deep-littered on comfy bed and I get through about 3 bales a week, at around £5-6/bale. I had him on shavings before and was using a similar amount but at a lot more £/bale, and it was taking me a lot longer to muck out. He is in a very large stable & has half of it bedded up, the other half is matted.
 
To save on bedding only take out the very wet bit and poos, do not disturb where horse has walked and packed the bed down, scrape dry shavings off top of wet patch, saving there, the put a 1/4 bale of shavings on top, nice clean bed and you can add bedding 4 times a week and only use one bale.
 
i look after a little pony at the mo and ive never seen such a messy pony,shavings don't last 5 mins so now slowly adding wood chip as its cheaper but even then she has got through 2 bales this week and 1/2 bale of shavings where my boy ive only used one bale of the wood chip just wondering if anyone just uses the wood chip.
 
Omg 5 bales a week?! If that was mine he would just have to live out a deal with it!! That would murder my bank account! Think I am rather lucky now I look at all these other posts :p
 
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