Bedding. Cost v convenience?

meleeka

meleeka

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I will potentially have 5 stables to do this winter. Horses have free access so not actually shut in often but they do use them daily.

My choice is wood pellets or straw. I changed from straw because of the smell and the heavy wheelbarrows. It’s going to work out much more expensive to start and maintain pellet beds though so I’m trying to decide what to do. One of the horses is a filthy beast but the others are fairly tidy. Shavings don’t really work for him as he tends to mix everything in together with them.


Wwyd?
 
blitznbobs said:
Do you value your time at all?
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That’s a very good point and one I hadn’t considered. Thankyou. Obviously with 5 to do I need it to be as quick as possible, for my sanity and back as much as anything. I’ve just been thinking about 5 wheelbarrow loads of straw a day and how big my dung heap will be.

I think I’ve decided to just not think about the cost 😀
 
I don't think you'll need 7 (15kg) bags per bed especially if they're not going to be shut in them. I'm pretty sure that when we start our 15x12 stables we use 4 or maybe 5. Definitely not 7 though, unless you're using them unsoaked?
 
LouisCat said:
I don't think you'll need 7 (15kg) bags per bed especially if they're not going to be shut in them. I'm pretty sure that when we start our 15x12 stables we use 4 or maybe 5. Definitely not 7 though, unless you're using them unsoaked?
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I could make the beds less deep (I have rubber mats) but I thought it false economy last year. I wanted to remove the wet weekly but found it came to the top much sooner than that so I was having to do it twice weekly. You’d think they wouldn’t be so wet, but I’ve actually watched my boy go into his stable, have a wee and then leave again! They don’t really see the point in a field with no grass in the winter and tend to hang around in the yard where the food is. 🙄. Maybe 6 wouldn’t be so bad 🤔
 
twiggy2 said:
I would use a base of dampened sawdust which is often free from a sawmill, I would put a bad of stay over the top and deep litter the stables.
No smell, cheap, quick and easy.
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That might work or even pellets with straw over then it wouldn’t need to be as thick. Thanks 😀
 
Laysoft is really quick to muck out even with mine who likes to kick his poo around. If you buy it direct from the manufacturer by the pallet, it's good value for money
 
asmp said:
Laysoft is really quick to muck out even with mine who likes to kick his poo around. If you buy it direct from the manufacturer by the pallet, it's good value for money
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I quite liked laysoft but for my pissy horses I found it a bit free draining. I think it could be great combined with pellets actually.
 
I’ve tried practically every bedding and wood pellets are easily the cheapest and easy to do. I’ve just bought two pallets (135 15kg bags) of the unbranded pellets from White Horse. It’s a big initial outlay but I know it will last two horses over a year and they’re in at night during the winter for about 6 months and daily for a few hours most of the summer. They live to pee and poop in their stables! Works out at £4.11 a bag inc a £10 coupon off plus cost of delivery.

I do think though if you don’t have a thicker bed then you end up throwing more away. I have half/ two-thirds beds covering a base of rubber matting but fairly thickly especially in winter. One I can leave wet in all week the other is a digger and I remove his daily. Find a snow shovel works well to scrape up wet residues after forking out. Gets easier as the bed settles and becomes more stable. I do hose them down sometimes in the summer as they can get quite dusty. I usually add two bags at a time and soak them thoroughly in my wheelbarrow until they puff up before putting them in. I find two bags works better than adding a bag at a time.
 
A good layer of wood pellets dampened down, then a round of clean long wheat straw on the top. Don't disturb base, just skip the poo and the stained straw daily, at the weekend take any obvious wet straw out. Don't dig.

I did this in a large stable, with an unsealed rubber floor lay on earth, last winter. Massive horse in from 6pm to 7am and out in the day. I used 3 rounds from October to April. No smell and so easy. In the spring it took 2 of us a couple of hours to dig and remove the base. Overall cost approx £100, that is less than £4.00 a week.
 
asmp said:
Laysoft is really quick to muck out even with mine who likes to kick his poo around. If you buy it direct from the manufacturer by the pallet, it's good value for money
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I used laysoft for a while and really liked it. Unfortunately my messy one is also very wet and likes to mush it all in together if he can so I was throwing quite a lot away. He goes where he’s standing and then turns round in it. I have tried minimal bedding too but the smell was horrible because he then lays in it. The girls are very tidy but he’s just gross.
 
YO uses wood pellets and has converted me to them, I do cringe at the cost each time I order a pallet but they are so much easier to muck out and more cost effective than when I had him on shavings as they would look like the tasmanian devil had whirlwinded through them and I'd end up throwing so much away, partly because I like a white bed but also because the poo, wee and clean had all been churned together so much it was impossible to separate
 
Crazy_cat_lady said:
YO uses wood pellets and has converted me to them, I do cringe at the cost each time I order a pallet but they are so much easier to muck out and more cost effective than when I had him on shavings as they would look like the tasmanian devil had whirlwinded through them and I'd end up throwing so much away, partly because I like a white bed but also because the poo, wee and clean had all been churned together so much it was impossible to separate
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Tasmanian devil, that’s exactly what it looks like 😂
 
I’ve never used wood pellets before- however I can’t understand why you would want your bedding to be wet? I know that it fluffs them up etc and you’d expect them to dry eventually , but surely having a wet bed initially isn’t good for them? Willing to be told otherwise as may give them a go! Live in a very wet western part of the country so a nice dry bed is lovely!
 
I don’t get how people are removing massive heavy barrows of straw daily. I never usually remove more than half a barrow. That was with my old boy and with my youngster.

I prefer straw as it’s a heap, readily available and I find Much quicker to muck out. I throw my bed up daily after lifting the poo and I usually only have to put in one builders bag a week of straw and I have lovely thick beds.

If I had multiples it would be straw
 
I had a wet dirty beast that I was feeding straw to as part of his forage, he is a fat Highland Hoover.
I put couple bags of pellets where he did his wet patch and bedded the rest in straw. It locks in the wet and the smell and apart from poo corner the rest of the straw stayed clean.
I have used about every bedding and my favourite is chopped hemp deep littered. But if I had free straw I would try a wood pellet base with straw on top.
You then do not have a huge bed to get rid of at the end of the winter.
 
holeymoley said:
I’ve never used wood pellets before- however I can’t understand why you would want your bedding to be wet? I know that it fluffs them up etc and you’d expect them to dry eventually , but surely having a wet bed initially isn’t good for them? Willing to be told otherwise as may give them a go! Live in a very wet western part of the country so a nice dry bed is lovely!
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Pellets are kiln dried because they are used for wood burners, so once bagged they stay drier than any straw you can buy. The damp just allows the pellet to break up but it doesn’t make it wet to the touch.
 
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