Arden safemix-dusty?or not?

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Prince33Sp4rkle

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last bedding Q i promise lol!

have people found this very dusty?more so than *normal* shavings?

not so concerned about the initial dust when bed laid as we never muck out with them in the stables but am finding that because CS and Fig are So dry and tidy, over time the shavings break down to dust, which chokes us all whenever they roll/move round the stable, or when we have to sweep up, and is covering everything in a fine layer of dust and driving us all mad (and we all sound like we smoke 60 a day!)


does the safemix break down less?


do i have ANY alternatives?!

hemp/flax is out as i think CS will eat it
wood pellet, look grim and freeze in winter and are dusty anyway
cant have straw due to muck heap size/eating it again

am still considering cardboard as the ultimate in dust free but not sure it will work for Bruce who is rancid in the stable.

argh! horses!
 
I have, found it ok and not too dusty. Changed back onto normal woodchips as mine is very clean and it actually worked out cheaper. Found that i should have used a lot more bales setting up the bed as the bales didnt seem to go as far. Very absorbant, he was on box rest for 2 weeks and i was taking out about a half a wheel barrow of wet every 4-5 days but as i said he was very clean. Didnt find the poo broke down in the bed if you know what i mean, it always sat on top. I also didnt think it looked that comfy but then i didnt have to lay on it! It didnt move round much which was good, there is still bits under my woodchip bed banks and while dusty not overly so when i dig them out.
I have also been on cardboard, i found them very dusty. As i said mine was super clean in a big stable, as there was no wet it made it very dusty where it broke down. I wouldnt bother with them again to be honest plus when wet they are heavy and stick to everything, sweaping them when wet used to drive me nuts!

ets my friend had her pee for britain cob on it and have far easier that woodchip and she used much less. I think she had a thiner bed on rubber matting but still much better than woodchip and she would take out far less a day.

Of the 2 i would go for the Safemix.
 
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I dont think it helped that i was on concrete instead of matting, it might have helped keep the dust down. Same with the woodchips as well thinking about it.
 
The yard has also been on woodchip (bedmax) and most of the boxes were the same as when they were on flax. So I would say the two are comparable.
 
At some point or another I've tried all the bedding mentioned! Mine is a weird one because he can be clean as a whistle or a complete tramp.

My opinions (FWIW):

Safemix - currently on this one due to bed not moving around so much, I deep litter and its very absorbent. It is a little dusty, but then the shavings we had were worse. I pay £5.50 per bag at the moment, which I think is pretty good. Sticking with this for time being. On a bad bed day I'm not so precious about removing a bit more bed.

Shavings - the ones we had at the yard were pretty dusty, on emptying the bag, they would spread easily and I prefer the heavily compacted sort. They would also leave a film of dust on my rubber mats which I just swept straight out the door. Best ever shavings I've used have been Snowflake or Woodpecker and these we awesome, not dusty and decent flakes without being too big. Pretty expensive though from what I can remember. I absolutely hate the big flake shaving for my boy, he's just too messy.

Flax/hemp - used to deep litter with this too. So expensive and time consuming on the days when he was messy as I skip all the poo out with gloves! Doddle when he was tidy but all in all, just not worth the expense. Stable layout wasn't good for this either, because Will's stable door is in the middle of the front of the stable, with water and hay either side, so he would reverse through the middle to get to hay/water and that was where the wet was so mulched it all in - yuk!

I am a stickler for a good bed and even though I have mats down, Will still has a full deep bed, so I suppose I make a rod for my own back ;)

Hope this helps :D
 
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