For New Users Of Wood Pellets. How Are You Finding Them?

Maesfen

Maesfen

Extremely Old Nag!
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As the title!

How are you finding them to use?
Are you pleased/disappointed; do they go further than you thought/less? Are they easier than your normal bedding or will you go back to that next time? How do you look after them and have you any tips you can pass on to others which you've found to help you?


I'm on my second year with them and would hope not to change back to anything else again (except if a mare is foaling of course!)

I think my main tips would be to use a garden rake on the bed regularly and make sure you take out any trampled in hay/haylage as that seems to make the bed damper for some reason.

Come on, let's hear your stories!
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I dont use them but only this morning i was talking to horsey pal and she was raving about how great they are and how i should change to them! Seems there are many happy customers!
 
i find myself replacing WAY more than one bag a week, as raff is VERY messy and tramples poo and wee everywhere.

other than that, i like it, and i'm going to stick with it for a few more months to see if he settles better on it. he seems to be getting neater, so i'm hoping he's getting used to it.

i have to make sure there are no 'pellets' left when i dampen the shetland's bed though... cos he thinks they're pony nuts and eats them. regardless of the fact they don't taste like nuts... he eats them anyway. and then snuffles through the bedding to find more.

i like the idea of garden rake to get haylage out. raff also drags his haylage through it too... which is hard to muck out. i have to say, in raff's stable i don't use the fork thing at all, i muck him out with a spade, as i have to just throw away all the middle of the bed.

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My yard owner likes the fact that there is less disposal, I breed cats and I use them for kittnes too, as kits tend to eat the litter and it's safe for tiny bellys - greta for smells too.
 
I use it and like it, but do find it is quite messy as my mare tramples it everywhere, and doesnt poo on it
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She also tramples everything into it so it is difficult to keep it loking clean.

HOWEVER, I much prefer it to shavings, and would use it over shavings any time. It is cost effective (even though I use 3 bags a week at the mo!) and find a depper bed is better. It does tend to smell though
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(I use LWP at the mo)
 
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i find myself replacing WAY more than one bag a week, as raff is VERY messy and tramples poo and wee everywhere.


i like the idea of garden rake to get haylage out. raff also drags his haylage through it too... which is hard to muck out. i have to say, in raff's stable i don't use the fork thing at all, i muck him out with a spade, as i have to just throw away all the middle of the bed.

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Yes, I do think the one bag a week is a bit optimistic too!

Last year, with nine in, I didn't take any wet out at all, just scooped muck out daily and levelled beds; they stayed very dry on top and settled, beds didn't move at all. This year, with only five in, I decided to try taking the wet out daily. The beds got very messed up, didn't settle to the floor so neds were going through to the floor (thankfully, rubber mats) and I was using far more bedding. I've now gone back to only taking droppings out, raking the bed over level daily and the beds have settled to the floor, they don't move and they don't go through them either which seems much better so that's how I'll carry on. It's also been a very damp atmosphere which affects the beds badly; you'd think they were different boxes on dry days! I've got loose pellets, not bags so have no idea of weight but I top up each box twice a week with two normal black water bucketfuls which probably equates to 3 10kg bags (or thereabouts).

I wonder if that way would help with Raff, can you bear to give it a try just mixing the wet in with the other bedding?
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I've also found it pays to have beds a bit deeper too and the funny thing is, if you do that and turn a portion of the bed over, the underneath will be pretty dry so don't think because the top is wet, that it goes all the way through to the floor and needs to come out; that's not always actually so.

Just read that back! Makes it looks as if I top up with 30kg at a time - whoops
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It's meant to mean 30 kg is each boxes weekly total which equates to 3 bags each a week. Hope that means more sense!
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I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM
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Stinky has been on them since 1st November. He is on thick rubber mats and I have about 3" bed over half the stable.

In the week I just skip out the poo, rake bed over to get out hay, and sweep back from the front. Midweek I remove any wet that has come to the surface. At the weekend, remove all the wet spot and top up the bed. I put the pellets down on the floor and use the hose to wet them down and 10 mins later it is ready to be used. It now only takes me 10 - 15 mins max to do the stable, fill the water and haybar, sweep the yard and go to the muck heap now which really is great as I am very limited on time.

I am using 1 and sometimes 1 1/2 15 k bags at the weekend but he is in 24 x 7 three days a week and only out 9 - 4 the other days.

Farra will be going from megazorb to LWP probably next week which will be the real test for them.

Very easy to muck out - I have a fine tined metal shaving fork which I can also rake the bed with to get out any hay - this too is very easy which is great as the little pest does like to pull hay round the stable. If it is dry, it is easily shaken clean from the bed and put back in the haybar which I could not do on shavings.

I have worked out that using LWP instead of shavings and megazorb is going to save me about £300 on bedding this winter for my two.

Finally it makes great cat litter - I use it as I do the horse, put in the tray and add water and the cats seem to really like having fluffy soft litter which can be easily flushed down the loo. You only need about 1" of pellets over the tray and again far cheaper than the cat branded types.
 
I am a convert. I use less than 1 10kg bag a week. I put them down on the 14th Nov, used 5 bags to start my stable off. Have topped up twice since (a bag a time). Almost a month on and only 2 top ups!!
I too just take the poo out daily and then take the wet out about every 10 days.
I do have a very clean horse anyway.
Best bit for me is no odour at all unlike straw!!
I can't imagine going back to straw.
 
I've used aquamax before and loved them. I'm now
using LWP and finding that I am plowing though them like no-bodies business. Has anyone else found that LWP are not as good as other brands? I'm seriously unimpressed with them. Having to put in at least 2 bags a week
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I'm intrigued by these, I bed on straw and it's a pain in the backside but it's cheap and I have to put a deep bed down because my horse box walks when he gets anxious about something (usually if I'm 5 mins late with his tea or if another horse goes out before him). Can you let me know where you get them, can they be delivered and how much? How do you think they compare to straw in terms of cost, I pay £2.75 a bale, I had to put 5 bales down to start the bed and I think I'm putting 1-2 down per week on top. I take droppings out through the week then the wet out on a weekend.
 
2 bags a week tho is probably equivalent to one bag of shavings and still half the price (round here anyway, cheapest shavings are £8+) So I don't begrudge putting 2 bags in as I was putting 1, if not 2 bales of soft chip in before.
We use Corley Bio Wood, who deliver (locally at least) and if you buy 100 bags in you get discount rate so it works out to be £2.34 a bag
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Horse is on rubber matting and we found if his bed was thin, he mixed the wet around and it *stank*. Now it's alot deeper (topped up with 5 further bags) the wee stays contained in one small area so is easy to scoop out and doesn't smell. I know some people mix the wet in but it's so easy to turn the bed over and remove the wet it's no big deal for us to do a daily full muck out, even the one on box rest. Then to top up we just soak a bag in the barrow with probably about half, 2/3rds of a bucket of water until it's only just still pellet like then put on top, it soon gets mixed in.
 
i've had mine on the WoodPelletBedding from Spalding Gardener for about a month. same sort of price as Liverpool. umm, for v mucky mare, far cheaper than the ecobed cardboard i was using before, so that's a huge plus. for the 2 clean mares though, it takes a LOT longer to muck out. so, i'm liking the £s but not enjoying the rest so much. does look nice and stay reasonably dry though, but on 1 warm day i could smell the ammonia, which is a pet hate of mine, and i wonder whether in summer it will whiff to high heaven and put me right off it...
 
I am trying LWP this year after using Natures Best and Woody Pet for about 10 years. I am actually probably going to go back to Natures best as I am finding the LWP are just breaking down far too fast and I am using them at an alarming rate. about 3 bags per horse per week - whereas with Natures Best I was getting through 1 1/2 bags a week per horse. I newver damp my bedding down - as that just breaks them down even faster. But I love wood pellet bedding, far far quicker and easier than any other bedding.
 
We've got 8 horses, and I've been trying LWP bedding for about a month, on two stables.
And I love them. I have one bed on matting one on the contrete floor. Both I set up with 8 (20kg) bags, for a nice big bed.
My mare go's through 1/2 - 1 (20kg) bag a week, and my filthy pony needs 1 bag a week.

I use a shavings fork to lift and sieve the poo out, and sweep the beds back. I've only taken the wet out of my mare once, as I found it. My pony pee's in one spot, and digs it about so his wet comes out every other day.

Both stables take a max of 5 mins each. And I have no probs with dust / amonia, as my mares very sensitive to dust etc, and shes great.

Its halved the cost of my bedding from last yr (per stable, was paper), halved my work load
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I am actually probably going to go back to Natures best as I am finding the LWP are just breaking down far too fast and I am using them at an alarming rate.

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That is exactly the problem that I am finding. I can put in a totally unsoaked bag one day, and within 2 days, all the pellets are gone, and by the third day, the whole bed is all looking filthy again. With Aquamax, they would last for up to 5 days, sometimes more.
 
I just had my first delivery from LWP last night (complete with free terrys choc orange?! random, but nice! and £20 off making them cheaper than Corley who I was originally going to use)
Looking forward to start using them, I don't have the storage for straw & my mare eats it so get through a lot, so this seems easier option especially as she is a clean mare im going to take droppings/excessive wet daily & rest of wet weekly as think this will work well for her.
 
This is my second year of using them and wouldn't go back to anything else. I have just put this years beds down - they are very deep (about 6 inches) as both of mine like to lie down to sleep and the gelding like to 'dig' his up a bit before rolling. By making them that deep it keeps them of the concrete and also means he doesn't disturb the 'wet' bottom layer. My mare is very clean and hardly ever wees in her stable so I will not have to top her bed up at all until she gets turned out - just poo pick and rake over in the morning. My gelding on the other hand is filthy and I will top as necessary but again do find the deeper the better with him - was previously on straw and it would take 3-4 barrows loads a day to muck him out......
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I have a tonne delivered (100 bags) and store them in the old grain shed but they take up very little room, way cheaper then shavings (8 quid a bale!) and so much quicker then anything else. £234 for bedding for 2 horses for the whole winter - and probably a few bags left over!! The only thing I nhave ever bought for horses that saves time and money!!
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