Bedding fail. What did I do wrong?

Luci07

Luci07

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I have 1 big wet gelding. I normally need to put in a 25kgs of shavings every 4 days with a full muck out daily. I have tried putting a wood pellet base on his wet area. Tried 1 bale in the wet spot and it was saturated within 2 days. Tried 2 bales and came through in 4 days. I do have a thick bed of shavings and had put clean shavings on top (around a foot). Took it all out today and reverted to shavings on their own as this has not reduced my bedding bill. So...am I doing something wrong?
 
is there a reason why he would wet so much, (eg is he bored and licking a salt lick or anything) That sounds very extreme.
 
You need either a really deep bed with wood chip and semi deep litter or a thin covering and removal every day. I do it thick and once it it compacts down a bit it stays pretty well put. I just remove the wet as it rises to the surface. I take a barrow load out once a week and top up with a couple of bales.
 
Are you putting the pellets down dry? They soak up a lot more if they're already starting to break down. It seems odd, but if you add a bucket of water for them to fluff up then lay under the wet patch they should keep your top bedding a lot dryer by locking in the pee.
 
how big is your stable and how big is your horse?

I gave up on shavings for my gelding as I was using 6 bales a week - but he is a large horse in a small box, and is prone to box walking. We're now back on straw again (after also giving up on wood pellets).

If I had a bigger box I'd be tempted to try auboise or paille de lin, but with the way he churns everything up, straw is the only way forward for the time being.
 
What ever you are going to use you have to accept it will not be fluffy white. If they churn it up I use a small pony for a couple of days to pack it down. For deep litter the base needs to be 6-8 inches deep solid and then your top layer of fluff, the bedding soaks up more when its partially damp. The dry sponge/wet sponge thing. When you are taking out the wet patch, which should be solid and you will need a good fork, you put in the pellets dry. I then take the bedding from the edging of the box which will be a bit damp, put to the middle and put what ever you are using for the rest around the sides.
You can also make a base of wood pellets in the wet area and then straw on top.
I would also work out how your horse uses the box. His he constantly walking about because his hay is away from the door where he wants to look out of. If he poos in one corner encourage that and make a deeper bed somewhere else. One of mine poo along the back wall so I do not put any bedding down there so I just scrap out the poo with a shovel, but the other does it on the middle wall so that the wall I have no bedding on. I just adapt the system to how they use the space.
 
Luci07 said:
I have 1 big wet gelding. I normally need to put in a 25kgs of shavings every 4 days with a full muck out daily. I have tried putting a wood pellet base on his wet area. Tried 1 bale in the wet spot and it was saturated within 2 days. Tried 2 bales and came through in 4 days. I do have a thick bed of shavings and had put clean shavings on top (around a foot). Took it all out today and reverted to shavings on their own as this has not reduced my bedding bill. So...am I doing something wrong?
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Funnily enough I have just posted in this section about Auboise, having started putting it in a small area of my stable last Saturday.My YO mucks out for me in the morning whilst my boy is out in the sandpit for his alloted 2 hours. Apart from this time out of his stable and other than 3/4 hour in the evening when I ride, he is more or less in his stable the rest of the time. My problem is i have a large area in my stable which needs filling in with soil and compacting down with a whacker plate. For some strange reason all though I requested this, after all the other stables were done this summer there was no more material left for my boy so he had to go without, if ever a horse needed a level floor its my boy! The YO has promised me it will be done in the spring, I don't think it was her fault it wasn't done, it was the person who did it I think. In the meantime I am using huge amounts of shavings to fill in this hole, and all the urine tends to flood into this area so he is stood for 21 1/2 hours a day in urine with his hind feet which is worrying. Apart from the urine in his feet, there is also the problem with his hoof angle, obviously a dip in your stable is not brilliant for a horse with hock problems, in fact its incredibly detrimental. I spend enough on the physio, farrier and vet as it is. I want to find a solution quickly before I am forced to move, so off we went and got a bale of auboise, and filled in the hole with it.

Its been really effective and the urine had literally clung to it. My horse is a big fella, 17.1hh about 680Kg and appears to wee a lot, but from eight in the morning when his bed is done until 7pm the same evening is a long time to go. He also pushes his pooh around with his feet which doesn't help!

Try a bale and see what you think. You are meant to wet it with water prior to laying down. We just shoved half a bale in the hole and the rest we mixed into the bed. Found we had a really nice firm surface.
 
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