at a loose end with bedding choices - badly draining stable!

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luckilotti

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hillhousestables.co.uk
ok, i need ideas, personal experiences of people with dirty horses who sometimes box walks in badly draining stables!

we have tried all sorts over the years, and i mean all sorts, yet none work effectively :-(

tried
- full bed of shavings - he mixed the wet with the dry = manky bed
- full bed of due bed type bedding (shavings and chopped straw mixed) = manky bed
- full bed of nedx bed bedding = manky bed
- full bed of cushionbed = mixed up and manky
- full bed of straw = holds far too much water underneath - poss to deep litter it for a while but then its backbreaking to remove
- full bed of wood pellets = disgusting isnt the word PLUS i found them very heavy to work with
- minimal bed (of shavings, cushionbed, straw, chopped straw) = even when giving a totally new minimal bed daily after removing the day befores, he looks like hes not been mucked out for days! (small bed at the back corner plus a light covering all over to soak up and wee etc as it doesnt drain and would be too slippy otherwise)
- i dare say there are others and i feel i have tried all sorts!

he has a 14x14 stable, fully rubber matted. the problem is with the drainage underneath - it pools, doesnt run to any particular corner etc. IF we owned the place, we would have the floors redone without any hesitation but the yard is only rented. It also doesnt help with a certain mare with foal at foot next door constantly pull their water feeder off the wall and it not only floods their stable but the other 2 in the block! It then seeps up the joins in the rubber mats and gets absorbed by whatever bedding i am using at the time.

HELP !!!

i hate my bed, every day it looks like he hasnt been mucked out for days - and he has!

i'm planning on trying to drill holes into the concrete floor as mentioned on another thread the other week but any other ideas?? I am the YO hence i have these stables for 2 reasons for my horses they are the better boxes for foaling the larger mares plus the drainage is bad for paying liveries!


ETA - on the whole i prefer a nice big bed of shavings, full banks etc, i hate straw with a passion - i only use it for foaling where possible. i also dont have the best of health at the moment hence need an 'easy clean', the wood pellets i found were far too heavy to work with when mucking out, i also have a lot of horses hence cost and time to muck out do also need to be reasonable.
 
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We have rubber mats with lots of shredded paper or shavings down and then a big straw bed on top. Our stables dont drain particularly well either but this has worked well for us as the wee gets caught in the bottom layer.

Could the mare who keeps ripping the water feeder off the wall have that switched off and some big trugs of water instead? You are fighting a losing battle otherwise by the sounds of it.
 
i think if you drill holes in the concrete it will get really really stinky.
you need a really absorbent bedding, to hold onto as much of the moisture as possible before it can go under the mats. my stables have no drainage (power-floated concrete, dead level, barn was here when i bought the place and not designed for stables!) and i have EVA mats on top of the concrete, then use Ecobed cardboard bedding, and I absolutely swear by it. quick and easy to muck out, no dust, really clean and warm, no smell, doesn't dry their hooves out (as shavings etc can), mulches down fast (wormery worms love it) or burns well. i wouldn't swap it for anything.
 
I have a filthy mare, box walker and general stress-head and the only thing that has worked for her is this (again she's in a badly draining stable and I had tried literally every other product):

Took up the rubber mats as there are pits in the concrete and the wee was just pooling in there and stinking the stable out and she is now on a deep litter bed of wood pellets. I put bags of unsoaked pellets in to a depth of 3 inches first and then at least 6 inches of soaked pellets on top of this and over the whole stable. I appreciate that this will cost a lot to set the bed up initially but after 2 winters of doing her bed like this it's been a godsend, I just take out the poo and mucking her box out now takes 5 minutes :)

All my others are on rubber mats with 2/3rds of the stable covered to a depth of 4 inches but with her I was having to empty the entire stable every single day and it was costing me more in bedding for her alone than my 5 others that are stabled :(

Might be something to consider.
 
The other option to consider is hemp bedding like Aubiose, it's expensive initially but is incredibly absorbant and very stable so doesnt get dragged everywhere which is the key thing to making for a messy stable. Also horses seem to find it very comfy to lie and settle on so they dont fidget as much.

Once in you can combine with wood pellets to reduce the cost, they work well together I find.

From 2 hours muck out of my disgusting gelding it now takes 20-25 mins and with less bedding and more settled horse!
 
Thanks for the replies so far.

Cardboard - tried that, had forgotton that one - it was horrible but i have 'issues' with wet paper and cardboard - it goes right through me lol

The water feeder the mare keeps taking off - we have had the yard for nearly 11 years and we still dont know where you switch that water supply off lol, neither does the man that owns the place! its not connected to any of the tanks, other mains inlet etc, hence, their is no easy way to cap it off etc unless we tried to do it when water was flowing out, its also the pipes on the yard with the best water pressure, so we would get drenched. What i am trying to get hubby to do is to build a frame around it so that she can rub on that rather than the feeder. with the feeders in the corners of the stables, we have fitted carner manger brackets so they rub on those instead - they have worked a treat, this water feeder though is slap bang in the centre of the wall :-/

In the past i have tried shavings and also sawdust under straw, the chopped straw etc, but i've still not been 100% with it.

Maybe i should try a different brand of wood pellets????? Last time i bought 2 pallet loads and danced around the yard when i finished them! i found them just so heavy to work with, my vet also wasnt impressed with them as she was quite interested in how i was trying them.

I do wonder if i would be better WITHOUT the mats????? as they tend to be a bit slippery when wet, they are about 12 years old now so i have certainly had a lot of use from them - but if i got rid of them, then i am back to needing a fuller bed....

On a positive note - it doesnt really smell, just looks terrible each evening. mind you, maybe i am immune to the smell now lol.

I'll have a good nosey at the Aubiose - thankfully, this horse in question is out 24/7 in summer, so i only have to deal with this in winter!
 
Have you tried Megazorb? It is VERY absorbant and if you put it down nice and thick the wet doesn't even get to the floor. You can either deep litter it and take out a barrow of wet once a week (it can be heavy that way as being so absorbant it is obviously quite heavy). Lifting out the little wet patch each day would probably be better for you.
 
our stables don't drain with all the rubber mat's down..they just end up floating!! We ended up lifting two of the mat's in one corner and just put the bedding in this corner using a shavings and pellet mix.. put the pellets down first (dry dont damp them) then cover with shavings..this seems to work in our stables...
or you have to lift all the mat's and put in new drainage channels..not a job i would like to do in the winter.
 
Tammytoo said:
Have you tried Megazorb? It is VERY absorbant and if you put it down nice and thick the wet doesn't even get to the floor. You can either deep litter it and take out a barrow of wet once a week (it can be heavy that way as being so absorbant it is obviously quite heavy). Lifting out the little wet patch each day would probably be better for you.
Click to expand...

I agree. Megazorb is serously absorbant. Can deep litter it or take wet out everyday. BUT it is serously expensive. I know you mentioned you dont like the wood pellets but they work for my messy mare as i deep litter and only take the droppings out and doesnt smell ( no ammonia)!!!
 
My last horse was the messiest I ever owned! I invested in mats last winter in the hope that they would help. They were only down a couple of months and I removed them. My floor was reasonably level but had no slope for drainage, so like you I found that the wet just sat under the mats. The best I ever had for him was a deep bed of Equisorb or similar hemp, which is really absorbent. It's a bit unstable for a while until it settles, but then I semi-deep littered it, just taking out the worst of the wet every few days, and it worked very well.
 
I'd ditto the suggestion of Megazorb - this is what I use on my rubber mats. It is very absorbent so you only need a little to mop up the urine, so doesn't work out expensive in the long term. But sounds like you need to get the water problem fixed first before you can give any bedding a fair trial!
 
remove mats (horrible things) or get more mats to put on top of the mats so higher up from the wet underneath, but personally i would get rid of mats. can't you put some electric fence around the water trough you will find the horse will put its head over it to drink but it wont rub up against it for fear of being zapped even with no energiser going through it.
 
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