Deep littering on a straw bed...

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ABC

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Hey, possibly a stupid question but how do you deep litter on a straw bed? :o

I have a 12 x 12 stable, with rubber mats covering three quarters of it. At the moment I'm, just mucking out as normal, but I'm taking out 3 - 4 wheelbarrows daily, so a friend suggested I deep littered to try and salvage some bedding...

So how do I do it? I assume I just take out the droppings and leave the wet in? Do I mix the wet in with the clean straw? :o

An idiots guide to deep littering on a straw bed would be much appreciated :D

Oh, and how much straw would you use to start off with? And how thick is the best supposed to be?

(Can you tell I normally use shavings? :o :D )
 
I wouldnt personally deep litter a straw bed, purely because they get so smelly!!

But if you are going to its just the same as doing it on a shavings bed, just take the poo's out and any wet that is showing on top of the bed, any other wet leave in but dont mix it. Over time the umdermeath of the bed will get more solid and hold the wet better!

I'd start off with a huge bed cause i think they look cosy :p and if possible i would add a slice or two of fresh straw everyday.
 
I deep litter mine, what I do is set up a deep clean straw bed to start, at least 3/4 small bales. When you muck out, very carefully remove visible poo with a fork as normal, then I go over with rubber gloves and skip out all the hidden bits. Its important not to disturb the wet and only take out loose wet that may have worked its way out the bottom layer. Always make sure you top up with clean straw. To be honest if I were on mats, I would put down a minimal bed in one corner or try a different bedding material. It can be backbreaking to muck out and if you don't muck out regularly ammonia will build up. I do mine once a week and disinfect when I do so.
 
I wouldn't deep litter a straw bed (well, I don't like deep littering anyway to declare an interest!). If you want to halve - at least - the amount of waste you're taking out, change to straw pellets.
 
Thanks, at the moment I can only use straw, so using other bedding isn't an option. :)

Hmm, I'm not too sure now, I don't want it to smell. :o I suppose I can try it for a week, and if not go back to just mucking out as normal everyday. Luckily he's not in that long anyway, compared to others, but I just would prefer not to be taking out 3 - 4 wheelbarrows a day!

Thanks for the advice!
 
Long long ago I worked on a yard where they deep littered with straw - It was really easy over winter - skip out the poo, and any really bad wet bits on the top, add a couple of slices each day. It did smell, but it also helped keep the horses warm.

Come Spring though it was a back breaking job to dig out all the stables!
 
when I was working extra hours last year, I did it to save time in the evenings and I didn't mind it.
I only left it a week though and did dull muck out at weekends. I didn't find it too smelly at all and it stayed in place lovely after the first night. I would definately give it a try, nothing to lose really. :)
 
I have one deep litter straw bed atm, and had another a couple of years ago. Neither smell/smelt.

You need to leave the wet to form a base, and add clean to the top after taking any poo out. Its important to add straw regularly - little and often I find works best, this helps stop it being smelly.

It does create a nice solid base that they don't tend to dig through and hurt themselves on the floor.
 
I have just started deep littering two of my boys on straw...

They are both horribly messy and I was using so much straw, I thought I'd give it a go. I have to say it was really hard to start with, I kept having to stop myself doing a full on muck out. But now I have learnt some self control. I just leave all bedding in, take out the poo, top up with fresh bedding, it doesn't smell, it doesn't look any worse than their pre-deep litter beds when I turn them out in the morning.
The pros.... they get a much deeper bed, and I am using half the amount of straw everyday than before.
It does take a few days to build up a good base layer, but once you have that it works much better. The wee soaks away quite well. My palomino hasn't had any stable stains which is a miracle!

I have to say it has been quite hard for me to go from a full muck out to deep litter.... I kind of always saw it as the lazy option. But I really have started to see the benefits of it. I would start with quite a bit of straw though.
 
Instead of deep littering I just make sure to take out the minimum but always make sure I completely turn the bed over every day. The problem with deep littering is the build up of ammonia, it is bad for their respiratory system and can lead to future problems.
 
Last winter I skipped out straw bed in the week and then put the bed up Sat/ Sun. I ensured that on one of those days I swilled out the stable with disinfectant. Worked well for me, but my mare isn't messy in her stable so it always looked fine, didn't smell and wasn't too much of a job on the weekend.
 
bgb said:
Instead of deep littering I just make sure to take out the minimum but always make sure I completely turn the bed over every day. The problem with deep littering is the build up of ammonia, it is bad for their respiratory system and can lead to future problems.
Click to expand...

A properly maintained deep litter bed should not smell badly of ammonia and affect the animals that use it.
 
I used to do a kind of semi-deep litter with straw and a small amount of shavings. Set the bed up with an inch of shavings then good deep bed on top, then every day poo pick. Every few days dig down to the wet patch (I always had one 2ft round patch in the same place) and take that out and replace shavings with a bucktful, then bed down on top with older straw before topping up with clean straw. I dug the whole lot out every couple of months, had a superb deep soft bed and neither bed nor pony smelt (until you do th big dig!!). When I dug it out I put all the clean bedding to the back and washed the floor with water and sometimes disinfectant, left it to dry as much as possible, then bedded down again. If I stabled now I would do the same again - uses very little straw, one bale of shavings every month or more, and my very active pony never ended up standing on hard floor. She also had bad thrush on a normal bed but never had a problem on the deep litter.
 
My deep litter stable has no build up of amonia or smell. I take out the wet maybe 2 or 3 times over the winter and no wet comes up to the suface. infact as long as you dont distrub the base layer then it stays dry all the time.
 
I only take the wet out that is showing and the poo monday ro friday, then either friday night or saturday i put bed up taking out all wet and turning banks over, then add 3 snall bales once dry.
This way i only take out a small wheelbarrow every day and 4 or 5 on my weekly clesrout and only oit fresh in once a week
 
if you have 3/4's of the stable rubber matter (and im assuming its the 1/4 by the door that isn't matted?) they dont need a vast amount of bedding

mine gets half a slab of straw every night with whatever clean stuff he had left over from the night before.

its super quick in the morning just to chuck to one side anything you want to keep, pull out the dirty sutff, sweep and leave up to dry for the day :)
 
I have one I deep litter as he is so clean and doesn't stir his bed up. Last Winter he was deep littered all Winter, I emptied his stable this Summer and it was only a couple of hours work.
His bed is never smelly, unlike the horses who are cleaned out every day. He does mix hay in his bed which I have to clean out thoroughly as that gets musty. I take the x4 poos out that he does every night, then lift any obviously dirty wet straw from the top of his bed throwing the clean straw onto his banks as normal.

I put this clean straw back as his bed, then put a fresh bale in every week. Easy peasy. This year I'm going to keep the deep litter area to a minimum, he does like to lay down a lot, so that area will stay deep litter, but I'll lift more at the weekend to keep my final muck out job to a minimum.

My mare digs her bed up and rolls a lot. She is on semi deep littered shavings, but would be awful on straw, her bed would be really dirty.
 
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