anyone want to take part in an experiment??

soulfull

soulfull

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I got to thinking there are often threads on which bedding is best so thought we could all test whatever bedding we have or can beg and slowly add water to it

say if we use a stubbs scoop of bedding and see how much water it will absorb
1) before it becomes mushy but before you can see water in it

If anyone fancies it say what bedding you can test and when, then if everyone sends me a pm with their results I can collect the data and let you all know the outcome
 
What do you mean, like one scoop of bedding in a bucket, then add a scoop at a time of water and tell you how many scoops it took to stop absorbing?
 
Bet I can guess the result ...

Straw - last!
Shavings - next
Wood pellets - best!!

Not sure about all the others in between but would put money on the fact that nothing would beat wood pellets .....
 
peony said:
What do you mean, like one scoop of bedding in a bucket, then add a scoop at a time of water and tell you how many scoops it took to stop absorbing?
Click to expand...

exactly this but would add smaller amounts of water at a time, even better if we can use a measuring jug and measure it accurately
 
mcnaughty said:
Bet I can guess the result ...

Straw - last!
Shavings - next
Wood pellets - best!!

Not sure about all the others in between but would put money on the fact that nothing would beat wood pellets .....
Click to expand...

Its the 'inbetween' ones I would be most interested in, as well as seeing if there was any difference between the brands of shavings:D
 
Or people on wood pellets could mix a scoop of wet bedding with a scoop or two of dry bedding to prove to all these people who don't believe you don't need to take the wet out of pellet bedding ;)

I'm on verdo bedding too, love it!
 
Funnily enough I've just rung round a few pellet companies for samples to do exactly this! Unfortunately I don't have a stubbs scoop and I suspect the samples may be smaller than this but if anyone can tell me how big a stubbs scoop is (3 litres?) I can scale up the results.
 
ok so not the pellets straight out of the bag. I will use a stubbs scoop (level) and not packed down. Will measure the amount of liquid added too.
Technically I should weigh the bedding before and after so you can work out how much water is being absorbed in percentages. A stubbs scoop of straw would weigh lot less than wood pellets etc.
 
But these are totally different types and systems of bedding, surely? Straw is a drainage bed whilst shavings and pellets are designed to be absorbant beds.
 
I think I'm just old fashioned and like a nice deep bed plus my stable is huge prob 20x20 and Ned is ancient so like a big bed for him. Plus straw Is £3 a bale here!!
 
mcnaughty said:
Bet I can guess the result ...

Straw - last!
Shavings - next
Wood pellets - best!!

Not sure about all the others in between but would put money on the fact that nothing would beat wood pellets .....
Click to expand...

This would definitely be the result for these and as I have one on shavings and one on straw I can't really play :(. Would like to know about the others though.
 
OK...because I'm a geek I had a go at this..

The method: one stubbs scoop (level) of bedding in a water bucket. One stubbs scoop (2 litres) of water poured on, strirred, after 5 mins stirred again and remaining water drained off and measured to find out the amount absorbed by the bedding

Results with amount absorbed to nearest 10ml

Megazorb - 1340ml
Plospan shavings - 720ml
Local sawmill shavings - 650ml
Snowflake softchip - 480ml
Countrywide own brand shavings - 460ml
Safemix - 450ml
Bedmax - 330ml
Straw - 90ml


Once all cleared away I made up some fast fibre, 1 scoop took 4 litres of water

Therefore my conclusion is that we bed on Fast Fibre in future - theyre going to try to eat the bedding anyway - why fight it?
 
Ok, so the samples I requested arrived today and let me say first of all that received a tiny handful from Megazorb, slightly more from Stable Gold but 2 X 15KG BAGS FROM LIVERPOOL WOOD PELLETS!!!

Anyway the sample sizes put paid to the stubbs scoop idea so I weighed out 50 grams of each plus the Liverpool economy pellets I am using at the moment (no longer available but included for interest) and added water in 50ml doses until there was visible water puddling at the bottom then I drained and measured the excess to give a final amount. The results are as follows:

Liverpool economy wood pellets absorbed 125ml
Liverpool premium wood pellets absorbed 155ml
Megazorb wood pulp absorbed 145ml
Stable gold straw pellets absorbed 215ml

Now, having unleashed my inner geek, I then worked out that if your average sized horse peed an average amount and spent 50% of its time in the stable each day for a year then you would use approximately:

73 bags of Liverpool economy
59 bags of Liverpool premium
63 bags of Megazorb
42 bags of Stable Gold

So Stable Gold is the clear winner but I will be buying Liverpool premium pellets because the Stable Gold leaflet stated that their product absorbs up to 300 times its own weight in moisture - er, no, that means that my 50 grams should have absorbed 15 litres of water :eek: :rolleyes: which irritated me plus I thought it was very dark when wet and smelt a bit and as I want to deep litter I prefer the clean smell of wood which stops the pee smell coming through plus the Liverpool pellets are a nice, bright, clean colour :)
 
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