Economical bedding for a messy gelding

[Quercus]

Looking for some advice now that we are coming up to winter. My gelding is disgustingly messy, he wees for England and box walks his poo for good measure. He gets snotty on straw so I use shavings, but last winter they were tricky to find and the price has rocketed up. I am debating whether wood pellets might be a cheaper option, does anyone have experience of them with a horse who soaks their bed then churns it up? I cannot deep litter with him, tried but couldn't get past leaving dirty bedding in there.

 

[Kirstd33]

Following.....

 

[Barton Bounty]

I used just sawdust with BB he was a wet box walker, it was the only thing that worked

 

[ecb89]

Aubiose. You take the poo out daily and the wet drains to the bottom of the bed. Only need to remove the wet once a week.

 

[asmp]

I have a box walker who kicks his poo everywhere so I use Laysoft. I couldn’t use a soft shaving as I’d never find the poo.

Would love to use Laysoft for the other one but he digs holes so can destroy a bed in minutes

 

[MNMyShiningStars]

If I could get sawdust near me I would use this as I found it most absorbent when I could get it. Now we use Aubiose. Thick bed and take wet out once a week and add a bale.

 

[AppyLover1996]

I used wood pellets for my wet and messy gelding and it did the job of being mega absorbent and kept the bed looking lovely, despite his toilet habits - however mucking it out was a total back breaker and on that basis alone, I stopped using them. The pellets absorbed all the wet, kept his bed looking lovely despite him walking around for England and overall I found them easy to use as the wet clumped together and came out in one big lump each time I did a full bed replacement. The initial outlay isn't cheap though (for an average sized stable with rubber matting in it, I used 10 bags and that cost me just under £100.00) , so something to bear in mind - also another thing is that would your lad eat them as they look a lot like pony nuts! The other handy thing is that you can soak the wood pellets a little bit, completely soak them or you can use them dry (but the last option is only if you're using other bedding ontop!) so if you lad is particularly wet, you can soak them just enough to be absorbent, but leave some room for expansion as they soak up the wet, or alternatively you can soak as per the bag guidance and go from there. But once you've got the bed down I found it incredibly stable and I only needed to top up by 1 or 2 bags each time. For context, my gelding would only go to the toilet in one area (both wee and poop) and then would mash it around as he gets anxious when his friends go out before him.

 

[maya2008]

When I had a box walking mare who would also wee for England, we used wood pellets as an absorbent layer on top of rubber matting. Never got too wet, mucking out took 5min at most. Wood pellets are expensive, but compared to the bales and bales of shavings and hours of time…worth it.

We also tried Aubiose. It did the job but I was allergic to it, so had to stop using it asap!