Best bedding for a dirty horse?

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sharonmaskell

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Can anyone advise what is the best bedding for a really dirty ex racehorse. He is on full livery and is driving yard manager nuts. He poos, wets and then just spreads it all over. At the moment he is on straw. Any suggestions?
 
Straw is the best, Question, is he in a small stable I find the bigger the stable the better they are, Just a thought.
 
deep litter on shavings, but a proper deep litter bed set up and managed properly too. it might cost to set up but the running costs and time is well worth it. works with my messy box walking, poo hiding, poo squishing mare!
 
Another vote for straw . . . the key to straw is making the bed deep enough. I have the dirtiest, wettest horse in the UK (no joke) and I keep him on straw on (sealed) rubber matting and it is the cheapest, most effective bedding I have found. His bed is almost a foot deep . . . I know where the poo and wee patches are (usually - he's been even dirtier the last few days) and can effectively dig out the muck, backfill with existing stable straw and then top up with clean very efficiently. It never smells of amonia unless I disturb the wet . . . the surface is generally dry and it's soft and warm and insulating in the winter.

Honestly, people who don't think Kal is that dirty (b/c his stable always seems and smells so clean) help me muck out and are shocked by how wet and dirty he is . . . but the depth of his bed and the way I manage it mean it smells relatively clean and he isn't covered in stable stains (and he's grey).

P
 
I have my filty boy on wood pellets. I find it fairly economical as you only have to throw away the really bad stuff, he was on shavings previously and that was a disaster! Plus pellets I can use two or even three bags a week without breaking the bank as they are only £3.60 a bag!
 
I have found nedsbed kept my grey cleaner than our new stable which has to have a straw bed. It may be that my old stable was just a bit bigger though, and the haynet was in a different place. I always make sure it's nice and deep. The wee goes to the bottom and I can pick the poo out and find the wee and dig that out. I find nedsbed 'holds' the wee better than straw does. My horse is quite clean, he doesn't 'paddle' his poo around, so that stays on top.
 
Another wood pellets vote here. Was taking out an over flowinf wheel barrow or more of straw a day on straw. He had his first night on wood pellets last night and mucking out was a pleasure today, not even a 1/4 of a barrow. I'm converted already
 
I have recently changed to bedsoft bio. Very easy to muck out, it doesn't move and the wet soaks up well and stays in one place whereas Vinnie was spreading it around and gettin his whole bed wet on shavings. I now throw out 3/4 wheelbarrow instead of 1 & 1/2 as before
 
Iv tried most beddings for my two dirty boys!! Iv gone back to straw! The key is a nice deep bed, otherwise it resembles soup in the mornings! I try and pack it down a bit too, so it's more rigid at the bottom to restrict it moving about so much! I definitely find straw the quickest to muck out too. Also the cheapest! I put a bale in each of the stables every other day to keep it topped up and spend much less as opposed to shavings etc.
 
Echo Bravo said:
Definately straw,have tried all the rest and came back to straw.
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Me too, for the price of straw you cant beat it, ive tried shavings, and aubiose which were slightly better than straw but not enough to warrant the expense, its so much cheaper you can put a whole new bed in for the price of 1 bag of hemp. Also with anything else it seems to suck up the moisture in the atmosphere.
 
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