Bedding all the way to the door?

[pistolpete]

Hi moving yards soon to a lovely new stable that has thick equimat. My question is do most of you still provide bedding all the way to the door or leave a matted area bug enough to stand on. Horse has had hoof problems and I don't want him half on half off the bed. Thanks.

 

[Lotty]

I have put mats down in the stable but I only put shavings on the back half.

 

[LovesCobs]

I bed to the door partly because I have a step in (to stop water going in) so the bedding doesn't spill out but also because if i dont one of mine tends to wee on the edge of the bed and then sleep on that bit leaving a lovely stain on his side! Doesn't happen now. Other than that I'm not sure leaving a bit free would cause u problems, they kick it around and make it uneven themselves and it can be a bit of a pain when the hay gets mixed up in the bedding at the front.

 

[pistolpete]

Horse out 24/7 at the moment but never really got his bed 'right'. He is a bit of a box walker, hay is on floor at front of stable and last year there was much bed trashing! Ideas please?

 

[Calla]

My girl's a complete bed trasher. I put shavings in all of her stable, but they're thin towards the front right of her matting which is near the door (she tends to end up clearing an empty patch here by herself) and then I leave a square in front of the door completely empty from shavings. I put her hard feed and hay on the square patch and whilst some still gets moved around and trampled into her bed it's not as bad as when I had shavings in the full stable. The rest of the bed has an underlayer going on (creating it at present as I got fed up about three weeks ago and chucked it all) and this helps her not to trash as much of her bed as previously. She still ends up with shavings everywhere and a not so flat surface, however the empty flooring space stops as much shavings coming outside of her stable and she seems to like to stand on the hard ground. It's not a very big area, just enough to put her hay on it, hard feed and a space to stand beside it.

ETS: I have found the less shavings I use, the more she trashes the place so I'm trying to work on a nice big fluffy top layer. Obviously every horse is different though. I was surpsied with my girl though as before I got her she lived out happily for five years, yet her favourite past time these days is standing in a big pile of fresh shavings. (I had to move one of the banks around the other week with her inside and she took great pleasure in standing extremely deep in the fresh shavings I'd piled up from the bank).

 

[wyrdsister]

I bed one of mine to the door, because she can scrape herself to bits even with mats and has a tendency to get cast. The other, who is not quite such a liability, only gets half a stable's worth.