Bedding woes

[treacle_beastie]

My horse is currently bedded on cushion bed on a deep litter basis. The bed has been going for 5 weeks but I just dont seem to be able to get the base established and every day i am faced with mush. The stable is a bit smaller than the last time i tried this system so she is walking around in it and rolling a fair bit. I moved the haynet so she didnt have to walk around so much in the bed and rugged her a bit less incase she was getting too hot and rolling more but i'm not convinced any of this is helping.

I have gone through about 3 months supply of bedding in the 5 weeks where i would normally put 1 bale in a week. I put 1 bale in at the weekend and by monday it already looked grim and there isnt enough clean layer. I tried sticking 4 bales in a couple of weeks back but it has made no difference to the thickness of the bed.

So do i
1) keep on going in the hope that it will soon establish
2) switch to a straw bed and muck out fully each day?
3) stick straw on top of the bed i have already so it soaks up the wee and deep litter with a mixture?

the only downside to straw is she likes to eat it and she gets a bit wheezy if its dusty.

 

[chestnut cob]

I think it takes a while for a proper deep litter bed to establish though I have never used Cushion Bed (had to google it) so no idea what that is like. It looks like it might be similar to Easibed or Snowflake?

I deep litter on shavings and would say you need a good, deep bed down initially. What you're aiming for there to be enough base so the base is wet but she is standing/lying on dry shavings on top. I haven't dug up my base for 18 months so it now has a great thick base. If starting from scratch, I would put in at least 10 bales of clean shavings, if not more, and certainly enough to make sure the wet doesn't show up on top. It does look like that bedding is quite dark in colour (the stuff you are using) so could part of the problem be that it just looks dirty? My YO has started using chopped rape straw and it looks vile because of the colour but when you look closely, it isn't a dirty bed.

Personally I would bung a whole load more bedding in so that you have a thick clean layer on top. Don't do anything with the wet mushy bed, use it as a base to bed on top of and don't sift through it. Bang the wet down with a shavings fork (hard!) to try to make a more solid base, then put lots of fresh on top. It takes me a while to get a deep litter bed I am happy with - I put a fresh bale of shavings in every 5-7 days, though I have a big horse who seems to grind up his clean bedding into dust.

Also, I found when I tried bedding other than shavings that I needed twice as many fresh bales. I didn't get on with cardboard because I needed at least 2 clean bags per week (others on the yard who muck out fully every day said the same), plus the bed was thin. YO says she needs twice as many fresh bales of chopped straw as she would shavings because there just isn't enough in the bags.

 

[treacle_beastie]

yep will keep on plodding on with it and hope it settle soon. It is similar to chopped rape which i had before. It actually didnt look too bad tonight but that may be because i was mucking out in a dim light!

 

[applecart14]

My horse is currently bedded on cushion bed on a deep litter basis. The bed has been going for 5 weeks but I just dont seem to be able to get the base established and every day i am faced with mush. The stable is a bit smaller than the last time i tried this system so she is walking around in it and rolling a fair bit. I moved the haynet so she didnt have to walk around so much in the bed and rugged her a bit less incase she was getting too hot and rolling more but i'm not convinced any of this is helping.

I have gone through about 3 months supply of bedding in the 5 weeks where i would normally put 1 bale in a week. I put 1 bale in at the weekend and by monday it already looked grim and there isnt enough clean layer. I tried sticking 4 bales in a couple of weeks back but it has made no difference to the thickness of the bed.

So do i
1) keep on going in the hope that it will soon establish
2) switch to a straw bed and muck out fully each day?
3) stick straw on top of the bed i have already so it soaks up the wee and deep litter with a mixture?

the only downside to straw is she likes to eat it and she gets a bit wheezy if its dusty.

I am going through this at the moment having converted my nice clean 'go down to the floor every night' shavings bed to a deep litter bed so my sympathies are very much with you Treacle Beastie. It is a total nightmare isn't it?. I am convinced my horse likes nothing better to do than make my life as difficult as he can by digging, mixing, scattering and thus totally destroying any hope that I may have of establishing a deep litter bed. When he leaves the bed alone it works very well. Most of the surface area of his bed has gone totally rock hard underneath, its just the front part that breaks up now. But when he decides to pull the banks down, dig holes and mix everything up like a cocktail... well that is when I feel like pulling my hair out! Someday's its a doddle. I take the surface pooh and wee off, get down to the rock hard layer, mix new shavings with some older bank, place that on top (about three inches deep). Everything is clean, smelling fresh and lovely and warm.... the next day I arrive at the yard to find bed scattered in all directions and total devastation!!

I have a bale of shavings and numerous bags of shavings which I get free from the timber yard. I am going to try one last time tomorrow to make my bed look presentable and then make a decision this weekend as to whether I am going to stick with deep litter, or go back to how life was before

 

[treacle_beastie]

I am going through this at the moment having converted my nice clean 'go down to the floor every night' shavings bed to a deep litter bed so my sympathies are very much with you Treacle Beastie. It is a total nightmare isn't it?. I am convinced my horse likes nothing better to do than make my life as difficult as he can by digging, mixing, scattering and thus totally destroying any hope that I may have of establishing a deep litter bed. When he leaves the bed alone it works very well. Most of the surface area of his bed has gone totally rock hard underneath, its just the front part that breaks up now. But when he decides to pull the banks down, dig holes and mix everything up like a cocktail... well that is when I feel like pulling my hair out! Someday's its a doddle. I take the surface pooh and wee off, get down to the rock hard layer, mix new shavings with some older bank, place that on top (about three inches deep). Everything is clean, smelling fresh and lovely and warm.... the next day I arrive at the yard to find bed scattered in all directions and total devastation!!

I have a bale of shavings and numerous bags of shavings which I get free from the timber yard. I am going to try one last time tomorrow to make my bed look presentable and then make a decision this weekend as to whether I am going to stick with deep litter, or go back to how life was before

yep all sounds familar!

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

Depending on how long your horse is stabled for, how big he is, how big the stable is and how much he tramps around when he IS stabled can all affect the time it takes for a deep litter bed to "set" properly. But don't give up hope!!! I've had the deep litter shavings bed of my veteran 15.3 cob (12 x 12 stable, he doesn't stomp about much but does enjoy a long nap) down for nigh on 5 years and it is deep and fragrant and inviting and dead easy to muck out. Takes 10 mins each day, 1 bale of shavings lasts yonks. He's in every day for about 6 hours, all year round. My 2 shetland ponies share the same sized stable and their new deep litter bed is only now beginning to "set" properly, and I started it about 4 or 5 MONTHS ago! Stay determined and try not to disturb the base bed - just remove poo, tidy up and bang it all down hard with the back of the shavings fork. You WILL get there and will be glad you stuck it out!!!!

 

[treacle_beastie]

I have used this system with her before and it just established itself much better but it was definitely a bigger bed. Its only the bit at the front which is mush - i am taking out an entire barrow load a day rather than 1/3 of a barrow of just poo cos she keeps mushing the poo into teeny weeny pieces which cant be sorted from the bed (well i could but would take me 3 hours to much out rather than 10 mins!) anyway, got my bill this morning and have switched to straw as i cant afford to carry on with it. I am going to keep my base underneath and the banks and just put straw on top instead so will effectively be deep littering still!