Best bedding for grubby horse!?

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ecrozier

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I've always used bedmax shavings for my lot, but someone's comment the other day got me wondering. Youngster is big-ish, 16.2, in a standard 12x12 stable with mats. He poos A LOT, and mashes it all up into a revolting mulchy mess. I have worked out the best system is to put his hay by the door and only bed the back half of the stable, so the worst of the mulch can just be lifted off the matting, but even his half bed of shavings does get pretty manky as he is also relatively wet.
I was wondering about using a bit more of something like aubiose, as that I could deep litter for a couple of days at a time at the back of the stable and make a bit more of a bed for him? He does lie down, every night. Also at the moment his stable rugs get FILTHY but I am trying not to use more than 2 bales of shavings a week!
Suggestions please as next winter he may be in for more hours as well - been left out til 7pm this year to erduce mucking out!
 
I use rubber matting with a small shavings/ wood pellet bed! I then add clean shavings, pellets every other day! I use a bale of Fine shavings every other week and a bag of pellets and then 1/2 bale of shavings and 1 bag of pellets the other week! I have tried huge big beds of easi bed or shavings and even tried deep littering but her bed was disgusting! She tramples her pooh every where!
Good luck! At least our other mare is really clean and just has normal shavings bed and 1 bale a week!
 
Bug2007 said:
24/7 turnout and a good rug!! Did the job for my mucky one.
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Lol that would be nice but sadly not an option as our grazing is very overstocked and he wouldn't get enough to eat. Looking to possiblty move before next winter but the yard I would go to doesn't have enough grazing for 24/7 turnout.

Where do the wood pellets come from? Can you buy in normal feed store? My other one is also very clean and only needs one bale a week!
 
Try Megazorb. It is semi deep littered as in you only need to take out the wet once a week and the pooh every day. It's worked really well with my messy ones and it is SO easy and you only use max one bale a week.
 
I used wood pellets on my mucky gelding and they helped greatly. And I only use 1 bag a week compared to 2 bags of shavings. I buy them from Liverpool wood pellets and I buy in bulk to get the best price.

I take the poo out and solid lump of pee everyday but the wet bits thats not clumped I mix in with the rest of the bed to make the pellets work.
 
ecrozier said:
Oscarwild how much do you have to buy at a time?
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I buy a pallet of 67 bags which lasts my one horse the winter and more. Last time I bought a pallet with no one else on yard I was around £3.82 per bag. When I bought in a group from the yard we were £3.62 per bag and we had 4 pallets in total.

Megazorb is manufactured from virgin wood pulp, a by-product of the paper making industry.
 
I'd recommend Liverpool pellets aswell. We had a pony mare who was absolutely disgusting and i tried everything- Literally!
After she died i bought pellets for my horse and could have kicked myself for all the time and money wasted on mucking her out when she could in fact have had a decent bed and been a lot easier!
 
Having tried straw, shavings, wood pellets, megazorb and rapisorb on my dirty pony, I've settled on aubiose and rubber matting as the best combination.

She's very dirty and also wet as well as being a box walker, so you can imagine what her bed looks like.

I currently semi-deep litter and have a full bed over the mats as I have the hard variety as she moves and destroys the softer more lightweight versions. I poo pick 2/3 times a day and take the wet out either when it rises to the surface or when it squelches but the bed on top is dry. After laying the intial bed any top ups of aubiose are put in dry which also seems to help.

One of my other two is terribly wet (I was using 5 bags of pellets a week at one point), he now sleeps on mats in a stable with special drainage holes drilled into the walls :D

Third horse has just moves to a bigger stable with amts at the front and normal straw bedding at the back and is now a million times cleaner and easier to muck out so I'd also look at moving your horse into a bigger stable if possible.
 
Thanks Tabithakat - bigger stable not an option at the moment, all stables at yard are identical. Interesting re the aubiose, he's not dreadfully wet its more the mulched up poo thats the problem!
 
OH's mare is a minger....we have tried all options and settled on matts with a few flaps of staw. Her stable is about 14x14 ft but she only has mats on half of it.....and we just put the staw on the mats and no-where else.

Its cheap, and easy to totally sweep out on a morning- leave it to dry and a fresh clean bed of staw goes back down at night. Takes me about 5 mins on amorning to scrape it up and sweep it out. She's clean and happy and we're not broke;)
 
simples - dirty blanket because not enough bedding, lots of poohs because too much feed (what goes in has got to come out), haylage makes bigger and more poohs than hay, lots of wet possibly licking salt lick too much or too hot so drinking too much or bored so playing with water and if eating too much then drinking too much you need to get a balance. Is he being turned out enough, if he is in a box and not turned out enough and not skipped out in the evening he is going to have a dirty box, there is only so much space available to pooh and pee in. Horses are not dirty creatures it is what we do with them i.e feed, box, turn out, blanket etc.
 
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