Awful bed - help plese

Boxers

Boxers

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Pony is on equibed (?) I think it's like flax.

He has rubber mats covering the concrete at the front of the stable and then the bed is on the rest of the stable.

It is deep litter, but has become a complete sh#t hole! It's awful. So wet. I pick up the poo twice a day and the wet is left and then I add a fresh bale of bedding every week. However, this is soon mashed into the original yucky stuff.

I'm thinking of doing the stable out completely in rubber matting. If I do this how many bales of bedding should I use each week? Also, what about banks should there be any?
 
Same with me. My deep litter is a nasty stinky mess made worse by a mare who has a party in her stable every night by the state of it each morning. My theory is that you can't have a deep litter bed on modern concrete floors as the wet doesn't drain away. Mine was brilliant in my very old stable which had a crumbly porous floor. It was dry, smell free and warm, but since moving to a modern one it's a horrible damp smelly mess! I'm clearing it all out tomorrow and going onto rubber matting and a shallow bed. Shame, as a good deep litter bed is the best.
 
hi how about taking the wet out once a week? thats what i do i use cushion bed and just take wet out once a week then put in 2 bales seems to work fine even with the really messy ones!!
 
I had the same problem and tried loads of different ideas all of which mentioned. I found that he was more messy on full matting and small bed and found I was still using the same amount of bedding. Deep litter and full muck out of wet once a week was ok, but the bed still looked a mess.

Now I am on straw and muck out fully daily and have rubber under his sleeping bit to avoid capped hocks e.t.c. His bed always looks scrummy every day and it costs me half as much.
 
Can't have straw unfortunately as the farmer won't take the muck away!

I think I am going to go down the matting route with a bit of bedding on top
 
I have 4 ponies and one horse on rubber matting and get through just one bale of woodchips every 2/3 days! They are out all day which helps, and three are very clean, they poo at the back and pee in exactly the same spot every time, so I just take out the wet and put down a good shovel or two of fresh shavings in the wee area. One pony needs quite a lot of shavings otherwise he won't lay down, but I leave a gap at the back as that's where he mostly poos, so again I don't waste alot. One old pony (probably Cushingoid) drinks gallons and pees lots more - I use about a quarter of a bale in the middle and take the whole lot out every day. It means his bed smells lovely and fresh every night, although it is not so fresh in the morning! I have had to use indoor/outdoor rugs otherwise stable rugs absorb the urine and smell awful. I don't use banks at all. Does this help?
 
I've had this problem with Thumper. I've stopped deep littering him, taking out the wet every day. I'm not using any fewer bales of shavings (around 4 a week), but his bed is now lovely, and much easier to keep clean.
 
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