Help! Impossible bedding needed for impossible horse

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LizzyLou

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My 16.2 TB ex racehorse is filthy is his stable. I've tried straw, hemp\flax and shavings as bedding. He is back on shavings now and manages to trample everything in.

I've thought of deep littering but have always been really hopeless at it. I can't stand to leave dirty bedding in.

Someone at my yard has suggested Easibed. Does anyone have a similar experience and if so have they tried Easibed or can suggest anything else?

Thanks
 
My solution for my messy mare, has been deep litter shavings. She is so wet and filthy normally, that her bed is wet through in the morning unless it's really deep. On deep litter, once the initial settling in period was past, we now have a dry bed all the time, with the poo sitting on the top, not mashed in with everything else.
 
Another vote for deep litter shavings. It does take a few weeks or months to settle down properly but once it has, it takes 10 mins (horse in from 8am to 3pm) to poo pick 3 piles of droppings off the top surface, take out any obvious wet/trampled at the front and scrape fresh shavings down from the bank at the back and bang it all down hard with the back of the shavings fork.
 
Try deep litter with wood pellets - they're more absorbant than shavings, bind together well to give a solid but cushioned base and work out cheaper.
 
was just about to post a similar question to this - so sorry to hijack!....do wood pellets work for stompy horses?? I'm trialing cardboard ATM and whilst I like it horse is so so messy he just stirs it all up.....am considering trying wood pellets before I resort to hobbling him!!
 
Yes wood pellets work for mytwo wet and stompy horses. I don't deep litter tho.

I find the wet, rake off top layer of dry and take out the hockey pucks of wet.

Very imp to lift and shake whole bed each day. Otherwise it compacts down and goes thin. If you agitate the dryer sides and mix it with the damper middle, it evens out the moisture and 'wakes' up the bed.
 
Thanks to everyone for help and suggestions.

I may give deep littering another go. I may have to, I think. Kallibear and Oberon, do you know if Easibed is made of wood pellets? I have also seen some adverts for Comfybed, which I think is wood pellets, but I can't find a stockist on door step and can't have large deliveries due to lack of storage space.

Oberon, how heavy are the wood chippings beds to lift up, bearing in mind that you point out that the whole bed should be turned over every day?

Thanks again for everyone's helpful comments.
 
i've got 1 absolutely filthy one on rubber matting and cardboard. i put less bedding in for her, basically just in the corner where she wees, and in the evenings when i skip out the others i just sweep all her bedding back (incl poos) and leave it all in the corner to absorb the wee, it sounds a bit gross but in the morning i take about 80% of it out and start again with a fresh 1/4 bed. she's the sort that if i give her 2 bales of bed a day, i have to take 2 bales out a day, as she mixes everything in, so this works best, after lots of trial and error... she uses about 2 bales a week, same as the others, this way. only thing is that i use a turnout rug on her all the time as the rugs get a bit disgusting. this way though the stable's clean for about 15 hours of the day - it's progressively more disgusting from 10pm to 7am, then clean again.
sorry, i just can't stand deep litter!
 
I have a couple of real muckers. I do the small straw bed on rubber mats, and accept most of it is gone in the morning.

My 2yrs old is slightly different, in that he shuffles all his bed to the back of his box every night. No matter where or how much you put in. Its all piled up at the back in the morning, even when I reset it at 10pm. He is on mats and I guess he just likes lying on bare mats.

If anyone else has a suggestion for that I'm happy to listen :)
 
LizzyLou said:
Thanks to everyone for help and suggestions.

I may give deep littering another go. I may have to, I think. Kallibear and Oberon, do you know if Easibed is made of wood pellets? I have also seen some adverts for Comfybed, which I think is wood pellets, but I can't find a stockist on door step and can't have large deliveries due to lack of storage space.

Oberon, how heavy are the wood chippings beds to lift up, bearing in mind that you point out that the whole bed should be turned over every day?

Thanks again for everyone's helpful comments.
Click to expand...

Easibed is made of chopped straw. I have a yard mate who uses it successfully but she has said it would be no help to a messy horse.

I use Liverpool Wood Pellets and I buy a tonne for the winter for my two. I store them in my tackroom (6ftx6ft) along with everything else for two horses (including my 5 feedbins!). But they do sell 250kg pallets. They stack against walls easily.

I do not find them heavy to lift. I just whip through them with my fork. Mucking out is quicker and easier than I've ever found it in years before with other beddings.
 
Oberon said:
Easibed is made of chopped straw. I have a yard mate who uses it successfully but she has said it would be no help to a messy horse.
Click to expand...

Has Easibed changed then - it used to be small chunks of wood (half a matchstick).

The biggest help I've found with a messy horse inclined to boxwalk is to put hay, water and feed as close to the door as possible. Then she tends to stay in one place and not trample it through.
 
jemima_too said:
The biggest help I've found with a messy horse inclined to boxwalk is to put hay, water and feed as close to the door as possible. Then she tends to stay in one place and not trample it through.
Click to expand...

That's one of the most sensible suggestions I've read for anyone who hasn't already worked it out themselves. The only thing is if everything's at the front of the boxes, that means they usually muck in the middle or at the back, depending how big the box is. Sometimes, it's easier to have them mucking as near the door as possible, that way they at least should have a decent amount of clean space to lie down in. Since having mats and using pellets, I only bed the back half of the boxes instead of with shavings it would be right to the door and the hay and manger are at the back so they stand with backend towards the door; makes life so much simpler and whenever I've seem mine laying down, even before pellets, they laid more to the back so this keeps both them and their beds cleaner even though they actually have less bed than with shavings or straw.
 
jemima_too said:
Has Easibed changed then - it used to be small chunks of wood (half a matchstick).

The biggest help I've found with a messy horse inclined to boxwalk is to put hay, water and feed as close to the door as possible. Then she tends to stay in one place and not trample it through.
Click to expand...

My apologies. Easibed is indeed made of wood.

I was getting mixed up with Sundown Yellow, which I also tried around the same time as Easibed.
 
comfybed is the one you want :thumbup:

if you can't find a stockist, call them on 01202 593601 and they will send out a pallet of 30 bales for a very reaosnable price.

because it doesn't move about you should find it ideal
 
My messy gelding has rubber mats with just a sprinkle of shavings in the middle to wee on. Then it all gets brushed out and I can start again. Any other way and I use more bedding than ever!

Only downside of this, is my yearling filly resides in his stable during the day, so she doesn't get much bed either!
 
My warmblood is filthy and is a bit of a box walker..

easibed was a complete nightmare and he managed to turn it into mulch every morning... I really really don't recommended that!

Those pelets which you soak, I don't think work either because they also turn into mulch with a messy horse unless he/she is really dry.

I'd recommended shavings and rubber matting.. the big heavy duty mats. Have another at deep litter but be patient and make sure the bed is deep to start with. Failing that I'd go for a modest shavings bed on mats. My grottiest is on eucolyptus shavings which have bedmax sized flakes and chopped straw. the eucolytus stops them eating ti and the bits of straw make it quite absorbent. Its about £6.50 a bale so pretty well priced.
 
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