:confused: Bedding Nightmare!

W

weefilly88

Well-Known Member
Joined
11 January 2012
Messages
51
Visit site


My boy is currently on a wood-shaving bed (hunter). No mats (yet) a deep bed because of the lack of mats and medium sized banks. Which i lift daily!!!

He is disgusting!!! i literally have to siv the bed for his poo. He has now mastered the art of aiming it in his food skip and water buckets. Would be brilliant if this was the only place he done it but ohhh no he is a poooo machine!

Basically I need some help!

Ive been looking around at alternative bedding and have been pondering on the idea of switching to pellets....only problem is I cant find any stores that stock it. I want to try it out first before i order trillions of pounds worth on the internet only to find we don't get a long.(I have emailed liverpool wood pellets have not heard back. I want to try something this weekend so want to be able to go collect today or tomorrow)

Then there is Auboise.....expensive yes but is this better? is it the same?

CONFUSED..... feel like a total **** not knowing the difference....

based in biggin hill area....

thanks in advance lovelies xxxx :p
 
Hi
Ive used wood pellets, they are great, I really like them
The bed doesnt move as easily as other beds, so the poo doesnt tend to get buried as much. But they dont look very clean for very long
I dont know of anywhere you can buy it from though, I had to buy a bulk load from LWP, think its just a risk you have to take :/
 
Hi-am not in your area but would definatley recommend the wood pellet route! There are other makes around so might ne worth asking at feed merchants etc: I've got an extremely dirty/ wet horse also and the pellets really made a huge difference! Obviously didn't make him behave any differently- just as much poo/ wee but lots less work and reduced costs. The downside is that the pellets don't look as nice as shavings!! But you can get round this by using shavings on top for a fluffier look!! For me this worked better as the pellets are hugely absorbent whereas shavings ant really plus droppings easierbto find and remove and wet patches more confined and easier to remove. Did once try Auboise but would have needed to take out a second mortgage to pay for the amount we were getting through!! Good luck and hope this helps. PS before pellets I was getting through 3 plus bales of shavings a week in winter!!! Pellets more than halved the cost.
 
I've worked on yards with aubiose, its as bad as shavings for ones that like to smash their droppings up anywhere. Agree with thatsmygirl, why not try straw?
 
I have found that the only way for dealing with dirty horses that churn up their beds and mix their poo and wee in, is to use rubber matting and have only a minimal bed. I have tried virtually every bedding available on the market and the best two I find are wood pellets and megazorb. Both are much easier and quicker to muck out than shavings and 4 times as absorbant.
 
Try setting his box so that everything is by the door.

I have corner mangers, one for feed and one for water - this stops them from pooping in their water (mostly)
If everything is at the front of his stable then he might just stop stomping it all around.
 
My friend had all hers on Easibed, as do I, and I find it fantastic, but one of her mares was really disgusting so she's now on rubber mats and chopped straw as its cheaper and she pretty much takes the whole thing out every day.
 
i have the same with my mare used to have her on shavings but went through them like anything and cost a fortune, i swapped to wood pellets and is by far the best bedding i have ever used :D takes half the time to muck out and very little wastage :) you can get a trial amount of wood pellets from places like white horse etc..... was by far the best decision i made swapping onto wood pellets :)
 
In your original post you say you are deep littering but lifting the bed/banks everyday? Have I got that right? I've found you need to give a deep litter bed time to settle and become a little compacted. If you are turning your banks all the time you are likely to be making it too 'fluffy' which will only help him to churn it all up. May be try leaving it for longer and see if that helps.
I moved to deep litter beds when I got my new job because I didn't have time for a full muck out every day. I use 'BLISS' http://www.blissbedding.com/ which I've found to be fantastic with 4 horses one of which is a Dogma style Golgothan **** Demon! We have rubber mats from when we used shavings but they really aren't necessary on deep litter.
This is how it works for me.
Starting from scratch with an empty and clean stable put down enough bed to have it about 3/4" deep. (In my stables this is about 4 bales). I don't bother with banks because IMO they don't do anything except create dust and provide a rodent run. The first few days will be a nightmare. It'll be all churned up and look a right state but stick with it! Resist the temptation to do anything except poo pick with rubber gloves and a bucket, run the rake over the top to flatten it back down and get rid of the Himalayas effect. You need to leave it for at least a week if not two. During this time the material compresses and stops moving around. because it so absorbent any wet areas are localised and what you get is the poo sitting on top, which you can easily skip out and then once a week you just shift off the top layer a dig out the wet patch.
I take a roughly a barrow a week out of each stable and need a little less the a bag per week to top each one up. The product isn't cheap but it so easy and we have our own muck heap so the fact that it rots really quickly is important because we don't have to empty it as often. Once the bed is established I reckon you are looking at around £8 per stable per week, less if you bulk buy and it saves SO much time, on poo pick days I think I'm down to 10 minutes a box to do everything and on a wet day maybe 20 minutes.
 
don't use aubiose if he churns up his bed! you will be sifting out poos all day!

Couple from my old yard used megazorb and swore by it....it think rubber mats and minimal bed is the only way to go with a real messy monster!
 
Wagtail said:
I have found that the only way for dealing with dirty horses that churn up their beds and mix their poo and wee in, is to use rubber matting and have only a minimal bed. I have tried virtually every bedding available on the market and the best two I find are wood pellets and megazorb. Both are much easier and quicker to muck out than shavings and 4 times as absorbant.
Click to expand...


Ditto this! Used to take us at least an hour per bed :eek:. Now it's twenty minutes or so to do the whole lot (water, hay, sweeping, bed).
 
All 5 off my stables have rubber matting but I bed up with nice thick beds as normal as I can't stand minimal bedding which doesn't encourage your horse to lie down and some won't wee if it's going to splash up their legs and rugs get covered in poo/wee it's awful.
All my horses are clean on a thick bed and it cost me £2.50 a bed per week to top up ( 1 bale off straw a week) give them thiner beds and they are awful really messy. And I think nothing looks better than a good deep straw bed
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top