Help me with wood pellets under straw

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Babypony

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Helloo. I’m moving three ponies off of 24/7 turnout to a livery yard that uses straw as bedding. I do not have the time to fully muck out three ponies, hence want to use wood pellets underneath straw. But I’ve no idea how many bags of wood pellets I’ll need per stable. The bags I’ve seen are 18kg. Can anyone give any advice? I don’t want to order 3 and end up covering 5 square inches of floor. Also do I need to dampen them? I have no idea what I’m doing 😂
 
Probably need about 6 to 8 bags to make a base. Ive used under shavings but not straw. You do need to wet them. I slit the bag open on the floor and use half a bucket of water in each bag. leave it for a few min then empty bag and spread on floor.
 
i used to put 1 bag in the corner where lily wees, so i could leave the wet in for 3 days - i needed a thicker straw bed and another bag!
 
Sandstone1 said:
Probably need about 6 to 8 bags to make a base. Ive used under shavings but not straw. You do need to wet them. I slit the bag open on the floor and use half a bucket of water in each bag. leave it for a few min then empty bag and spread on floor.
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Thank you! Gah that’s super expensive. Wondering if it’s financially worth it now. Will have a think.
 
Babypony said:
Thank you! Gah that’s super expensive. Wondering if it’s financially worth it now. Will have a think.
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Depends how much of the floor you want/need to cover. Its good to soak up the wee but if your horse pees in one place you might get away with less. I do it to have a base that soaks up wee with shavings on top. You only need to remove the wet once a week or so.
 
Sandstone1 said:
Depends how much of the floor you want/need to cover. Its good to soak up the wee but if your horse pees in one place you might get away with less. I do it to have a base that soaks up wee with shavings on top. You only need to remove the wet once a week or so.
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I’ll have a chat with the girls, show them some spreadsheets, and explain that that they need to wee in one specific spot if they want to continue to have carrots. Cheers!
 
Babypony said:
This is more my budget tbh. Might try a couple of bags per stable and see how I get on. Thanks!
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i’m lucky in the sense that both of mine wee in 1 corner, but lily also poos there so when she’s walking round to look out the window at the back she makes poo lasagne😂 she digs it up to eat her bed and covers it all up, then lies on it!!🤢🤣 so the pellets should’ve worked, but didn’t really - my mum now mucks out for me when i’m working because i do 12 hour shifts, so that solves that one🤣
 
Babypony said:
I’ll have a chat with the girls, show them some spreadsheets, and explain that that they need to wee in one specific spot if they want to continue to have carrots. Cheers!
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Mine has trained himself to pee on the way in from the field, and again on the way out in the morning (they walk along a track so plenty of pee spots). I feel the bedding savings is well worth the 2 extra ‘pee carrots’ he gets 🤣
 
I use pellets under straw, unless you think your ponies will eat them I don't bother wetting them first. I want them to have maximum asorbancy.

Is the straw included in your livery? I would make a straw bed and put the pellets under where they wee. Sort of deep littering I can skip out all week and do a deeper muck out once a week like this.

If you want to make a solid sort of bed under the straw e.g over concrete. The bags of decorative wood bark £13 for 100L from Wickes mixed with pellets make a great base. The wood bark covers a good area.
 
I deep litter my straw and it works really well. I have a very deep bed so all the wee soaks to the bottom and just top up each night so the top is always clean and dry. I do my big muck out once a fortnight. I use 1 big bale every 6-8 weeks and his feet and rugs are so much cleaner than when I used pellets or shavings because the bed is so much deeper
 
I use straw pellets under straw. I use about a 3rd of a bag in the spot where Dave wees & I can usually stretch a week out of it. I do put a good thick bed over the top.
 
So I have a stable where during rain the water comes up through one corner of the floor so each week I put down a 18kg bag of wood pellets, I do not soak them and I cover with shavings. I have found this has helped massively with the wet as they naturally and slowly absorb the urine but also stop the water that gets in rotting the shavings
 
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