Curious..... What bedding is everyone's favourite

Joyous70 said:
those of you on wood/straw pellets, how do you find them with very wet horses, mine likes to stand in the doorway and make her mess there, and proceeds to mash it all into the bedding, if i don't bring the bedding almost to the door she makes a mess directly onto the concrete YUK! (not sure if its a youngster thing or a mare thing)
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I had a mare like this, I put the bedding right to the door and also deep bedded her with wood pellets. She's the one I went from 4 to 2 bags a week with. I only took out the very wet patch daily and pulled some bed over it. My stables have a row of brick so I had a lip at the front to take the bedding to
 
Bliss, bliss, bliss! Absorbent, kills smells, light to muck out, breaks down on muck heap quickly and also used for chickens!

Ideally love deep straw bed but not so good for horse.
 
Miscanthus Pellets every time for me!

Far more absorbent than straw or wood pellet bedding

Less likely to cause skin irritation

Easy to muck out

I get mine from PelletBeds.com :)
 
I use shredded paper (long stuff) I get from my work free of charge :D I get about four massive big binbags full per day sometimes more and I find it absorbent, easy to muck out (similar to straw) and no smell :D My older gelding can be a dirty bu&&er at times and with this hes fine and also no dust ;)
 
Lovescobs said:
I had a mare like this, I put the bedding right to the door and also deep bedded her with wood pellets. She's the one I went from 4 to 2 bags a week with. I only took out the very wet patch daily and pulled some bed over it. My stables have a row of brick so I had a lip at the front to take the bedding to
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Thanks thats really good to know as i have just ordered 20 x 15kg bags of pellets to try and see how she gets on. She was in for just a few hours yesterday, 11am-5pm and i still had to take out a whole barrow of mess.
 
Joyous70 said:
Thanks thats really good to know as i have just ordered 20 x 15kg bags of pellets to try and see how she gets on. She was in for just a few hours yesterday, 11am-5pm and i still had to take out a whole barrow of mess.
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there are a few ways of doing pellets and I tried most before I settled on which one worked for each horse.
With my very wet mare I left the wet in at first and let it build up a good base underneath. I even pulled back the dry and spread the wet round (stamping on it) to create an all over base (if she wees in one or 2 main places) then I only took the wet out if it was soggy (just a small patch. that's the very wet patch I mean, not damp bedding.
I also tried adding extra bags on and activating them with water or just dry. With five star I found dry was best. with LWP I wet it slightly.
If you search wood pellet beds on here there are some really good threads with photos and peoples different ways of doing it. try them all if you struggle with one.
I was taking out 1 barrow for 3 (1 horse 2 ponies) and 1/2 a barrow for my wet/messy mare and then a bit more once a week before I added new bedding. they were in at night and out most days.
Hope it works well for you, I wouldn't go back!
 
Lovescobs said:
there are a few ways of doing pellets and I tried most before I settled on which one worked for each horse.
With my very wet mare I left the wet in at first and let it build up a good base underneath. I even pulled back the dry and spread the wet round (stamping on it) to create an all over base (if she wees in one or 2 main places) then I only took the wet out if it was soggy (just a small patch. that's the very wet patch I mean, not damp bedding.
I also tried adding extra bags on and activating them with water or just dry. With five star I found dry was best. with LWP I wet it slightly.
If you search wood pellet beds on here there are some really good threads with photos and peoples different ways of doing it. try them all if you struggle with one.
I was taking out 1 barrow for 3 (1 horse 2 ponies) and 1/2 a barrow for my wet/messy mare and then a bit more once a week before I added new bedding. they were in at night and out most days.
Hope it works well for you, I wouldn't go back!
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I have read that people tend to do their pellet beds different ways, i will try a few out with her and see what works, she's not in at night yet, but will be at some point.

It might be a really daft question, but are the very wet patches obvious, like they are with shavings? i don't want to end up taking out bedding that will be suitable as a base for where she wets
 
For me a very wet patch is so soggy it's mushy and almost sloppy. Damp and changed colour isn't, I'd pull dry pellets over that. At the weekend I take some of the base (wet but not soggy) out but only after the bed is established and has an overall base. That worked for my very wet and messy mare. Mine aren't in yet so I can't take a photo and show u :)
 
Lovescobs said:
For me a very wet patch is so soggy it's mushy and almost sloppy. Damp and changed colour isn't, I'd pull dry pellets over that. At the weekend I take some of the base (wet but not soggy) out but only after the bed is established and has an overall base. That worked for my very wet and messy mare. Mine aren't in yet so I can't take a photo and show u :)
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Thanks again, im hoping my pellets will arrive this week, so i can lay the bed at the weekend, at least now i know what im looking for with my wet patch, i don't want to be taking out good bedding or damp bedding, that could be moved to where she wets the most.
 
Agree with Lovescobs, though I rarely take any wet out. The only time I find I need to take some out is if the horse has been in 24 hours, so last winter I took out a heck of a lot more than I'd ever done. If the horse is out during the day, I swirl around the wet and it dries during the day.
 
ive just changed from straw to bedmax. its soooo much easier to use. my gelding was actually terrified of it at first (he was a rescue and was badly abused before we had him)

he is really wet and then enjoys tipping his buckets over every night. its a great game :D

i like bedmax but having 2 horses and 2 goats on it who r all filthy beggers :frown3: im looking for a cheaper option. i hate pellets in everyway shape and form im afraid. i even prefer straw to that!!

susi x
 
9tails said:
Agree with Lovescobs, though I rarely take any wet out. The only time I find I need to take some out is if the horse has been in 24 hours, so last winter I took out a heck of a lot more than I'd ever done. If the horse is out during the day, I swirl around the wet and it dries during the day.
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Glad it wasn't just me that does this!

Replay said:
I like Sundown - www.sundownproducts.co.uk - and as a bonus you get the smell of eucalytus!
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If I only had one or two, that's what I would use, I love it.
 
Straw is my new favourite bedding, the last two winters I've used wood pellets, then shavings for the summer. I was toying with the idea of pellets again but some companies have been dodgy with delivery etc so I decided to stay on shavings, however I could only get hold of large flake which I'm not that hot on so five weeks ago I asked yo to order me in a large bale of straw. Ben used to go through 1 bale of shavings or two bags of pellets a week so the cost was approximately £8 a week. I've been using the same bale of straw for five weeks now and am not even half way through they are really compact bales, good straw and they cost £23 each which should last me about 8-10 weeks!!! Huge, huge saving compared to £64-£80 for the other two bedding types for the same amount of time!!!
 
My tb has been coming in for the past 2 weeks as the weather has been so grim, and I've got him on chopped oil seed rape straw and it's brilliant! 2 weeks and I've used 1.5 bales, which is included starting with a brand new bale! So easy to muck out, I take out the wet daily, which is just a small patch in the middle.

It's heavier than shavings so doesn't blow everywhere, but the flake is quite small so really really easy to sift.

Loving it!
 
My favourite bedding is cardboard, so comfortable & makes a lovely bed - completely dust free too. The only reason we stopped using it was because they upped the prices a lot and we had to go for an alternative.

Two of ours are on shavings (Bedmax), messy mare is on a megazorb base with big fluffy straw bed & banks which works out best for her as she cost us a fortune in bedding - the straw alone stank but with megazorb underneath it doesn't, which is great!
 
I bulk buy wood pellet horse bedding for our livery in 15kg bags on a pallet, as shavings were too smelly and not really cost effective. After trying LWP I settled on Five Star Professional brand and now order 5 pallets a month from Eden Products www.edenhorsebedding.co.uk

Also, we used to have concrete floors, but now have rubber matting. With concrete floors we needed an initial lay of about 10 bags for our 12 foot stable, followed by 3 to 4 bags when mucking out (the idea being that you only disturb the wet areas and leave the rest of the bedding in place). However, we have now invested in rubber matting and only needed 7 bags for the initial lay with approximately 2 bags when mucking out - much cheaper, and quicker.
 
Lickety-Split said:
I am an avid supporter of Eco ComfyBed - it's one of the cheapest per kilo types of bedding on the market and it's easy to use and very economical, saves me bags of time each morning!
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This for me too ^^^^

I tried wood pellets & hated them, also found I was having to put about 5 bales a week in! With ComfyBed I put in a bale every 4 days or so, and it's quick. This morning I mucked out a friends horse who is on shavings, her horse is much cleaner than mine but took me twice as long.
 
I use auboise - small peices of hemp. My mare is clean but wet! At the moment I have her and Milo (her foally) in every night - they are drinking about 120 litres a night between them! I'm using about 1.5 - 2 bales a week of the auboise. If it's just Roo I used to use 3-4 bales of shavings a week and only use 1 a week of hemp. It's not cheap per bale (£10.30 near me) but because I only use one a week it's much cheaper than anything else. Smallish pieces so easy to muck out, makes a nice bed and is pretty much dust free.
 
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