Cardboard bedding

My horse is on full livery and they use cardboard bedding. I personally don't like it, but being full livery I'm not the one who has to muck out so it doesn't matter. They use about 4 bales a week (in at night and out during the day) which I think is crazy - at his old yard he was in the same routine but on aubiose and had half a bale a week, occassionally if he'd been in for longer he had one bale per week. So although the cardboard is cheaper at about £5 per bale that works out at £20 per week compared to 4.50 per week for aubiose (it'd £9 per bale). I'd go with aubiose any day over all other beddings.
 
hmmm, thank you, yes, I was wondering about absorbability...I use flax at the mo, deep litter on rubber matting and it is wonderful stuff, minimum maintenance...I poopick and remove the wet every couple of weeks, and it rots down well on the muck heap. but I have one ned that is likely to need an even more dust free environment (and our last batch of Jopak was dusty!) and I do wonder about the environmental responsibility of importing stuff from the continent when we can recycle...anyone else had any experience or thoughts?
 
i use Ecobed, have done for years, absolutely love it. lots of posts about it in the past if you do a Search.
it's dust-free, doesn't break down to dust with use (as most other beddings do), warm, no smell, absorbent, quick to muck out, mulches down very fast, wormery worms love it.
i wouldn't have anything else.
 
Persephone, i used paper in the past, and this is much much better. it doesn't clump soggily together, it's more like shavings to handle, it doesn't blow around the yard all the time (paper drove me crackers for this), there's no print to come off and get into little cuts on the horse's legs and stop them healing well (have you had this yet?). i wouldn't go back to paper for anything, i'd rather have straw and i detest that!
 
I hated it last year when shavings where hard to get hold of. It stuck to the rubber matting and after about 2 weeks the stable began to smell. Yes I clean the stable out every day fully and skip out at night and he only comes in at night but I skip out before I go to bed.
 
Kerelli No it wasn't Ecobed but poster did say or equivalent so to me cardboard bedding is carboard bedding.
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Tried Cardboard for a brief spell last year- as with anything there are pro's and cons!- the cardboard I was getting was v cheap , approx £4 a bale, and it was shredded- it did make a dry absorbent bed, took the wet out every day, however I like deep beds and banks, and to keep them decent I was putting in a bale to each horse a day!! so v expensive- the bales I used weren't v tightly packed, and the cardboard was shredded not square cut which I do think makes a difference- I've used something similar to Ecobale in the past and it was much better to work with however so i'd go for Ecobale if I were looking to set up cardboard beds again!
I prefer paper to the particular cardboard that I used!, mine are now on a mixture of Diceabed/paperdown paper bales (they have 1 bale paper per week)mixed in with Sundown Red, and one of my boys who is not so clean as the other also has a bale of shavings per week as well, have tried this the last couple of months and makes a lovely deep absorbent bed!
Also have heard good reports about recycled egg box cardboard bedding however haven't tried it so can't vouch for it!
 
I use cardboard bedding. It doesn't break down like shavings which is good but you need twice as many bags to get a the same volume of bedding as you'd have with shavings, which in some ways makes it a bit pointless.

No dust though which is great and the bed seems more stable than shavings. Also doesn't smell like shavings or seem to get so dirty.
 
OMG I didn't even know about the print/cut/leg scenario! Hasn't happened to me yet but I'll be sure to keep it in mind!

I do a full muck out everyday on paper, but I find if I don't do it until the afternoon it smells a bit boggy tbh.

Thats really interesting though. I would like to try the Ecobed. I'll have to speak to my Feed Merchant and see if he's amiable to the idea.

Did you do a total swap from paper to Ecobed or was it possible to gradually change over?

It's so funny this was posted today as I was just looking at the Ecobed site this morning!

 
I used Ecobed very successfully for years and I love it. I only changed to paper a year ago when I found a supplier nearish me which is almost half the price of Ecobed.

That is the only reason I changed, but to answer your question I did a gradual change over. I certainly wasn't going to throw the orginal bed away!
 
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