Deep Litter....Pros...Cons?

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ElliePippa

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Basically what are your views on deep littering...Do you use it?
What are the pros and cons?
Thankyou x
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I started to use deep litter when I swapped D onto wood pellets. Work very well with wood pellets and mats but I don't know about other types of bedding that are less dense.
 
I tried it once but my lad was very wet and likes to trample his bedding so I just ended up with a big wet pooy (sp?) mess that if I tried to take just the poo out I had to sort of scrape off the top layer! I know the majority of my yard do it very successfully and have beds about 3ft off the ground! My friend is just building hers back up again for winter. I have heard that if you use a sort of base layer that is very absorbent this helps a lot!
 
I think it depends on how dirty your horse is. My friend deep litters her old mare that is very clean and her bed looks nice, my boy is clean but wet and I couldnt imagine what it would be like if I left it more than a week. I sort of semi deep litter, leave the wet in on my work days and remove it on my days off. I find I use less shavings that way.
 
I like it. I used wood pellets and then went onto shavings (just kept throwing them in on top). I used to take out poo and scrape off any wet patches in the early days, then I got wise and realised it only smelt if the wee hit air and the ammonia was released so in the end I just took out poo and chucked more shavings over the wee. I have geldings so pee patches tend to be small and 'drilled' into the bed, if you see what i mean? I had mine going about six months and although FB trashes poo into his bed it was pretty easy to manage. Because it was pellets it did go a sort of biscuity brown colour (like sand) but I'm not colour prejudiced and it was dry, warm and incredibly thick! I topped it up as it needed it - maybe once a week.

I now have mats at the front and a metre strip of deep litter bed at the back which I am building up, so I am adding shavings everyday.

Pros: economic, easy to do, warm

Cons: It's a killler cleaning it all out once a year!
 
I deep litter my horse. She used to be filthy on a normal bed, she wees for Britain and does elephant poos! I swapped to deep litter because I was putting in a bale of shavings every other day and it was ridiculous. I've had her deep littered for about 4 years now and wouldn't do it any other way. I dig out every year (roughly) when I feel bad about it, but could leave it down for longer really.

I feel quite lucky because the back half of my stable has a dirt floor - this lends itself to deep littering as it drains brilliantly. I just skip the poo out every day - 60 seconds to muck out
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. I have rubber on the front with no bedding.

I have deep littered on concrete too, you just need to put enough bed in to start off with. The first few weeks is the hardest, until it beds down to form a base - don't give up too soon
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I deep litter my horse on straw over the winter. I will probably start to leave the bed down in about october and it will go through to march/ april if well managed.

Regardless of the type of bedding you choose you need a fairly tidy horse that doesn't dig holes or mush everything up, and don't be too skimpy with bedding, you want a nice dry layer on top to lock the ammonia nastiness below.

A well maintained deep litter bed is fab - thick warm and dry and quick to muck out as you only need to skip the poo off the top.
 
if you are going to deep litter make sure bed is deep. 18 inches to 2 foot. if bed becomes stinky dig out. not really suited to youngsters who have amonia sensitive lungs unless in a large airy barn situation. not really suitable for COPD horses, get ready for a big, big, digout in spring, masks required!
 
Hate it! I think there is nothing better than a big clean bed, be it shavings or straw, and it doesn't take any longer to do it all properly, and if you do it right, it doesn't take much more in terms of bales. In fact, it is far easier to muck out fully imo, as you can just fling it all up, not worrying about digging bits up.
 
That said, for our wet mares we used a reasonably deep straw bed, threw it up every day and used a dilute iodine spray on the floor - stopped smell, and the bed / floor dried out properly. The trouble with mats is pee can seep underneath and then is smells rank!
 
I deep litter over the winter but tend to dig it up every 4 weeks or so. I`m no brave enough to leave it for a year and the thought of all the work/smell just to clear it out just isnt worth it
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However this winter i might try leaving it for a bit longer inbetween. I use straw and find it works really well
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muck out properly every day is my choice. still a very big bed where the wet doesnt travel. cant stand stinky beds stinky horses stinky rugs? false economy
 
I think you'll probably have to try out a number of options to find the best. My horse used to trample her poo into her bed, but is now the tidiest on the yard, and does her droppings on her mats and leaves the bed neat. Sometimes they are messy on one regime and different on another, so there's no way to tell without trying.

Agree with those that say minimal bedding on rubber could get messy though!
 
My boy is on rubber matting with shavings, i have him on a semi deep litter basis. During the week all the poo is taking out, bed smoothed over and 1 day at the weekend (normally a saturday) i take the bed back to the rubber matting and take out all the wet. I lay the bed once it has aired and add a bale of shavings. So i end up putting in 1 bale a week.

Works really well for us and his bed defintely looks cleaner than others on yard who use rubber matting with a sprinking of shavings, as it gets very messy.

For me deep littering is quicker and cheaper but dont think i would be keen to do it without the rubber matting.
 
Deep litter's ace - if you do it correctly. Often people don't leave it long enough or mess around too much with it and thta's when it starts to get messy. I leave mine down all the time and only recently dug it all out when I moved yards. In the end it will start to compress down. T's fieldmate is very wet and box walks but deep litter on straw is the best way to deal with it as it all gets absorbed by the layers underneath.

I wouldn't keep my horse on mats with a bit of bedding because I don't think it's as comfortable (I am aware that they lie down in the field but I still think rubber matting is not as comfortable for one that lies down a lot). I also like the idea of there being no protection for their legs when lying down/getting up, which is particularly important for mine as he tends to scrape his hocks getting up, even on grass! I wouldn't keep a wet horse on little bedding - where is all that wet going to go? All over your horse and rugs, I should think.

To start you may have to shift the wet around so there's some under the areas that don't get wee'd on - usually the middle gfor mares and the banks for geldings. Once you've done this and have a good layer underneath the clean just take the poo out and carefully take any wet that comes to the top out, but try not to disturb the underneath. The more you potch with it, the messier it will be.
 
I've put down mats for the front third of Sunny's stable, deep litter shavings for the back 2 thirds. Some overlap at the join. Concrete floor underneath the whole stable. If you start a deep litter bed properly and look after it correctly, it's brilliant. Mine has been down for over 2 years now and all I ever have to do is take out the poos and any obviously wet/churned up shavings at the front, pull down fresh shavings from the bank at the back. Always fragrant, never ever any ammonia pongs, simple to do and in winter when Sunny is in from 4pm to 9am (17 hours), I only use 1 shavings bale about every 5 or 6 days. And believe me, that gives a gorgeous, generous bed. My YO's deep litter beds have been down over 6 years!
 
I deep litter now on Aubiose/Hemcore and wouldn't manage horses any other way. I have just moved yards though and getting a new bed to compact and establish is going to take a few weeks, which is a pain - my previous beds were down for a year and others at the yard hadn't dug theirs out for over 2 years - no smells at all.

I have a 15'x15' stable so deep litter the back half and rubber mat the front half, the only bit I have to work on is the leading edge of the bed which tends to get trampled down across the mats initially
 
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