Help! Winter yard query

[palo1]

We have now mostly finished creating our winter yard in our new home. It looks great for me!! We have taken a large, high but open fronted steel framed building that is about 30m x 15m (covered) with an area somewhat larger at the front of this that is uncovered. It has trees (mix of conifer and others ) on 3 sides with a track leading to the house on the fourth so pretty sheltered. We have a surface of whacked down hardcore and scalpings so in some places it is flattened hardcore and in others smoother with whacked down scalpings. Under the covered area it is largely flattened hardcore and I have laid a large area of rubber mats. There are several feed and water stations which have rubber mats in front of them and those also link up with the central area of matting. This central area of matting is about 4 big stables worth and 3 horses will be wintering on this yard. I am hoping the horses use the central area of covered mats to sleep/lie down and I plan to put shavings on the mats to encourage them! BUT how do I encourage them to use the uncovered area (or at least not on the shavings covered mats) to wee and poo? I don't mind hugely but they will have loads of room but I suspect they will use the 'lying down' mats to make a mess. It hasn't been especially cheap to set up but I am hoping it will allow for good respiratory health, sociability, space for them and convenience for me! Horses will be able to go out into the field but that is likely to be limited for a few months as we are quite high up and fields are likely to turn to swamp. I have no intention of trashing the fields in winter as then I will have knackered any decent soil structure and grass for the summer. All 3 horses will be in work and exercised regularly regardless of turnout into the field. I don't think my Horse Hall is quite big enough for a gallop about lol.

Can I do anything to encourage them to wee and poo OFF the rubber matted area? OH is convinced they won't need shavings and that they will simply wee and poo on the outside hardcore area. I am really not convinced and will certainly be putting shavings down on the undercover mats but if I can encourage wee and poo somewhere else I would love to know how. TIA.

 

[ROMANY 1959]

We need pictures to see your fab winter set up,please. And doubt they will poo and pee to order where you want.

 

[palo1]

We need pictures to see your fab winter set up,please. And doubt they will poo and pee to order where you want.

I will try to get some pics to show what I mean and I quite agree - virtually zero chance of horses complying with my plans or instructions...!!

 

[Starzaan]

They may poo where you want, but won’t pee there as they hate the pee splashing on their legs - I can cause ammonia burns.
I would go for a nice deep bed so they can get the required REM sleep, and that will help keep the place tidy too!

 

[poiuytrewq]

Sounds amazing! Lucky horses. I suspect they will pee where it’s softest though! On your shavings!

 

[splashgirl45]

Sounds like a good plan but we need pics please

 

[dogatemysalad]

Sounds wonderful. Lucky horses. I'd go with deep shavings at the back and water and forage near the front. My horse has a very large stable and mostly poos in the section near the door by his haylage and water, which doesn't have shavings. He's too busy eating to move.

 

[Polos Mum]

Mares or geldings?

Could you put a pee area with some shavings where you want it and leave some poos / pee smelling stuff there to tempt them.

They definitely won't pee on bare ground - the splashing would be grim.

 

[Goldenstar]

They will pee on the bedding .

 

[PurBee]

I went through this exact same dilemma palo, when organising my yard winter turnout. I had a covered area with thick 1 inch mats, i wanted them to lay/sleep there. They did, BUT they also poo’d and pee’d on the mats, rubber crumb…so the pee soaked through the mats, not ‘run off’. They also pooped on the outdoor hardcore randomly.
Also, they got hock burns from laying direct on the rubber mats.

I wanted to get rid off having a large bed that they pee’d on - 2 horses sharing a large double stable open-barn, so the bed is large in there, and they soon soak it all with pee, costing 3 bales a week of bedding.

As starzan says, they love the deep comfy bed for REM sleep. you’d think my arabs were cobs with how chilled-out they are, and i think the ability to deep sleep, comfy, in safety, has a lot to do with their demeanour.

So i relented and put a large deep bed in the undercover double stable….while having feeding stations / water on the hardcore 1/3 acre outside. I use a deep bed system and use underneath layers to soak up pee, while having top 6 inch clean dry shavings. I keep topping it up over the weeks, then do a ‘piss-take’ ? every 6-8 wks, removing the whole bottom soaked layer.

The *only* thing that has reduced them peeing on their big bed, is by putting a fairly large 4x4 metre circle of shavings/woodchip outside on the hardcore. This is about 10 metres away from main feed station, as many horses are lazy and will just move a few metres away from their food to poop mid-meal.
I tried this ‘extra small thin outside bed’ as an experiment to see if i could reduce them peeing in the stable - and it does! They often use it as a second bed.
I dont clear this away, just take poops off top, top up with another bag every 25 days or so, the rain washes through the shavings so it doesnt smell. Its situated on a slight slope that leads to grass/soil soakaway so fertilises that part of the property with their nitrogen pee.

They pee on it even when its really thin. Where there is bedding horse will use as a toilet.

During dry spells ive only whiffed it slightly and just shove another bag of shavings on top to quell any smell. I’ve had the outside bed down for over a year and removed the lot once. There wasnt much to move, 2 barrows? God knows what happens to the shavings, maybe microbes in the hardcore break it down fast, but its really easy to use, as i dont have to do anything to maintain it, but they use it for peeing, which i see often, as it doesnt splash them.

If the weather is dry and not much rain washing it through, you could hose it down for 5 mins Weekly/fortnightly. Urine soon degrades in oxygen and u.v and stops smelling.
But have the outside bed situated near to grass/soil and the ‘wash-off’ wont smell at all.

You could gain some advantage as this is a new area for your horses. Initially just put a fairly large bed down outside where eventually your mini outdoor pee bed will be, and keep rubber mats clear of bedding where you eventually want them to lay down. They will pee on the outdoor shavings bed in preference to rubber, as rubber can splash them. This will ‘train them’ to use the outdoor bed for pee and poop. They can lay here too for sleep during this training period, so make it quite thick.

After 3 weeks, put a deep bed on the undercover mats you have planned for them as a bed. They will be presented with quite a quandary…as there’s 2 beds now (in their eyes), but ‘habit’ should hopefully prevail, and horses are sometimes habitual brutes, so fingers crossed, they’ll continue to use the outdoor bed for pee and keep the indoor clean. You can but hope!
I was at a disadvantage as my horses were used to peeing in the undercover barn, and i wanted to re-train them to use a different area, so the advantage gained for me has been significant still, but could have been very significant if they had never toileted in the barn at all.

This mini outdoor bed has enabled me to provide them with a big, deep comfy undercover weatherproof bed for full crashed-out REM sleeping, while also increasing the amount of time between ‘piss-takes’: thus reducing my need for bedding overall…despite me having 2 beds!

I also bought a small semi-industrial wood chipper, secondhand off ebay, as have lots of trees on the land, so can quickly provide a large sackfull of chippings for the outdoor bed. Whatever free, soft material you have available would do for the outdoor bed, doesnt have to be expensive grade A shavings. Anything which will stop pee splashing. But your initial fake large outdoor ’training bed’ wants to be comfortable - whatever you use, see that as ‘sacrificial’ bedding for the cause of saving bedding costs later on!

 

[palo1]

Thank you @PurBee!! This is exactly the information I need. My central block of rubber mats is something of an island - linked to the feed stations but not near the internal walls of the barn so I am a bit concerned about how much bedding to put down and whether it will migrate all over the internal hard core areas. Will that matter? I guess at least for a while it would just fill in the holes around the hardcore? I wanted to create a rest area that meant any horse would still have space to wander around that area to get to feed/water/outside and to sort of replicate the 'lying in the open' that they do in the field. I don't want to encourage any of the horses to lie down where they could get cast either. I can put a sacrificial area outside on the hardcore though I don't really have a slope to utilise. However, I could use woodchip/cheap shavings fairly easily I think. I am happy to 'invest' in a big outdoor pee bed if that keeps the rubber matting area cleaner and healthier for resting horses! OH will undoubtedly be both utterly bemused and horrified by additional cost of bedding (though it will be my cost not his lol). I am glad to hear that the outdoor bedding doesn't create problems on the hardcore; that is something I was thinking about as it seems a bit ungrateful of me to get OH to totally re-work the space only for me to turn it back to sludge again. Fingers crossed! Horses haven't yet started using the yard as we still need to finish the fencing/barriers around it but I will try to do a 'gradual' training introduction.

I am not sure about a deep litter/deep bed as 2 out of the 3 horses love to dig. But I am certain they need some bedding as 2 out of the 3 are also pretty thin skinned (arab x) and I don't want either scraped, nor do I wish my sensitive older horse to decide that he cannot lie down. I wonder if something other than shavings would work better on the island of matting...I haven't had much luck in the past with wood pellets and I need to make sure that anything I use is ok for my mare with respiratory sensitivity. Maybe shavings won't blow away though I fear that is optimistic... I am really pleased with the area and concept generally so I hope I can make it very comfortable and relaxing for my little herd. Of the other 2 horses, one is a hill living horse in the winter and the other, a very elderly hill pony that has come down onto the farm for her final years does not wish to share space with domestic horses lol. She will go out into another field (but that is my OH's decision as she is his hill pony lol). Thank you for such clarity and experience; it is very much appreciated.

 

[palo1]

Mares or geldings?

Could you put a pee area with some shavings where you want it and leave some poos / pee smelling stuff there to tempt them.

They definitely won't pee on bare ground - the splashing would be grim.

Both! I am hoping I can create a peeing area outside before making up the island of sleep with a deep enough bed of shavings or something else.

 

[palo1]

@PurBee - can I ask if you think cheap woodchip would be safe and satisfactory for an outside pee bed? I would be slightly concerned about the rotting/mould aspect of it, especially because my mare has some respiratory sensitivity (and likes sticking her nose into anything lol) ? I guess just cheap shavings would be ok...Having spent quite a lot of capital on making the set up I don't really want to spend a fortune on bedding for piss if I can help it!

 

[palo1]

I am guessing that generally only 2 of the 3 horses will be lying down at a time so I may be able to somewhat confine my shavings to an area smaller than the current rubber matted total? I suspect my Welshie would happily lie down on just rubber mats but the 2 arab x will want more comfort lol. I have worked out an area of rubber matting that would contain all 3 if laid down as they do in the field.

 

[atropa]

No help but sounds like a fantastic set up, lucky horses! Hope it works well for you

 

[palo1]

On a roll now lol!! I have put feed and water stations under cover as I don't want to either waste haylage, nor have it blowing round the yard. Feed stations have rubber mats so I can keep it clean. This means though that the feed stations are nearer the central matted island than they would be to the external pee station which may make the island more tempting for peeing on. I can move water stations outside no problem and I should be able to slightly move haylage stations...Hmmm.

 

[palo1]

No help but sounds like a fantastic set up, lucky horses! Hope it works well for you

Thank you! I am very lucky that the barn was already there and we have been able to utilise materials already on the farm so the key expense was the stone and labour to scrape and lay that stone. Even so, it has been a fair job to do!! I couldn't afford stables (and wouldn't choose them for my situation tbh) but I am not sure what else I could have planned. I hope the blooming horses approve now...

 

[Polos Mum]

When I spent £thousands on a super doper fancy massive field shelter my little darlings just stood in the middle of the field in howling gales and snow. Occasionally hiding in the hedge if it was really bad.

They didn't set foot in the shelter all bad weather !!

They went in it to avoid flies in summer - so they weren't scared of it - just preferred being cold and wet I guess.

Be prepared for them to do the most random things - be be happy you have given them plenty of good choices.

 

[palo1]

When I spent £thousands on a super doper fancy massive field shelter my little darlings just stood in the middle of the field in howling gales and snow. Occasionally hiding in the hedge if it was really bad.

They didn't set foot in the shelter all bad weather !!

They went in it to avoid flies in summer - so they weren't scared of it - just preferred being cold and wet I guess.

Be prepared for them to do the most random things - be be happy you have given them plenty of good choices.

Indeed! I have tried to be as free thinking and flexible as I can with planning so that if the horses decide they don't like what I have arranged, things can be moved/shuffled/re-thought. They are bound to have strong opinions about the new set up in one way or another lol...

 

[Polos Mum]

Best of luck and we'll all be interested to see what they decide is preferable!

 

[PurBee]

@PurBee - can I ask if you think cheap woodchip would be safe and satisfactory for an outside pee bed? I would be slightly concerned about the rotting/mould aspect of it, especially because my mare has some respiratory sensitivity (and likes sticking her nose into anything lol) ? I guess just cheap shavings would be ok...Having spent quite a lot of capital on making the set up I don't really want to spend a fortune on bedding for piss if I can help it!

Woodchip from forestry departments tends to be all fir-based trees -i.e they contain fir oils which are naturally anti-fungal — pretty much what all shavings are made from, hence why they are a bugger to rot down on the muck heap!
A tree surgeon would supply a mixed of chippings, and deciduous tree chippings do mould and rot faster than fir.

Forestry departments use commercial chippers that produce large pieces of chip, around 4-6 inch pieces/slices. So they dont pack-down as firm as garden centre woodchip bags of small woodchip, allowing air and a sponginess to the bed, rather than a firm block.
I used large forestry fir wood chip outside under trees for them to laze under and they liked it. They’d lay on it if they didnt have their indoor ‘Luxury shavings’ bed. The unremitting winter rain didnt mould it -it drained well. Spruce fir chip was what i used.

You could trial large fir wood chip on the outdoor bed, see how they get on with it, if they lay on it, asses its biodegradability, and if it does well, you could use that as an indoor bed. It’ll stay much drier, and springy indoors, however if they do pee on the indoor woodchip, it’ll flow right through to the mats - unless you put wood pellets underneath.

I had wood pellets as a base to a deep shavings bed. They were great, cost -effective, 8 weeks before i had a 5 inch dense soaked base to clear. The price of pellets here doubled overnight though, so im using shavings throughout. Prefer pellets to soak up pee.

With the training bed outside, i’d like to say they’d use that only for pee, but horses being horses may well use the indoor bed, despite habitually using the outdoor bed initially. Depends on the horse. You’d have to be prepared for that.

If you’re really averse to providing bedding that you’ll have to remove pee - just try a massive thick 10 inch outdoor pad of fir woodchip. (This is what im going to evolve to this winter too) They can sleep there when the weather is fine. Storms are brutal but fleeting so they can go without REM for 24hrs if they must without turning into devils! Leave the indoor matting as mats and see if they do use the outdoor bed for laying on. If you notice a horse never using it for sleep, you know you’ll have to consider an indoor bed.

My hardcore outside is well packed down. I’d need a pick-axe and have my weetabix to be able to break it apart. All materials ive ever put on firm hardcore have always just rotted on the top - theyve never broken down and mixed-in with the hardcore. This makes it easy to scrape-away any outdoor bedding, once its fully ‘spent’ - and put down a new bed.

You say your outdoor area is level. Did you laser level it? It’s more ideal if the outdoor bed can be where there is a slight slope for rain/pee run-off onto grass soil. What you can do to find the best place for the outdoor bed is to get a hose and start drenching areas of your outdoor hardcore, to see where the water flows to. Despite a pad looking level, usually there’s a few degrees of slope, imperceptible to the eyes, that will cause run-off of liquid. This doesnt happen on laser-levelled ground.
Asses your hardcore with a hose - does it soak-up the water? Or is it so compacted run-off occurs? You dont want your outdoor bed to run-off towards the indoor/undercover areas. You want an area where it flows out and away from the area, towards fencing, into bushes/trees.

I get why you moved feed stations undercover - i ended up doing the same, due to weather mainly. With your set-up it would be more ideal if your feedstations were right near the edge of your undercover area - so the haylage is protected from the worst weather, but the horses are situation near the outdoor bed, to encourage them to use the closest bed….which they will.

Oh, i forgot to say, my initial outdoor bed test of shavings, i put literally just 2 metres outside the opening to their barn bed, and they used it! I saw them often move out of the barn to use the outdoor bed as a toilet, and return to the clean, dry barn. This told me that horses have a ‘sense’/instinct to wanting to keep clean, they dont eat where they poop in the fields do they? But we inadvertently ‘train into them’ to eat and lay where they poop and pee, by stabling them.
Only when the weather was pouring down would they remain in the barn and toilet in there.

Longterm i couldnt keep the outdoor toilet bed just 2 metres from their indoor barn door because it was in a too sheltered position with hedges right close by, it was in a corner, so rain wasnt so exposed to it to flush it clean, ventilating the urine smell was an issue because of very close hedges providing wind shelter, despite the smell being mild, and also that area we use for vehicle turning/access.
I moved it to another place by a large tree, more exposed with still some shelter, and it’s 40m from their indoor barn. It doesnt smell, gets flushed through and its very satisfying seeing them pee on it!
They still use it but not as much if they are in the dry cosy barn, and have to, god forbid, walk 40m to go to the loo!

Im going to be doing similar to you and providing a very large chip outdoor bed, to see if i can migrate away from the hassle of dealing with pee-soaked bedding. My climate is rainy, at least 1 day out of 3, so there’s a lot of flushing through of rain. Without rain, a regular hosing could be used.
I did think of perhaps using rubber chip as a thick oudoor bed, but unsure if they’d pee on it? Rubber chips splash dont they? I didnt want the issue of rubber chip being stuck in poops on the muck heap, as a farmer, or me, wont want to collect poop and spread rubber bits on their land. Large fir-based wood chip is the organic solution i think would work best.

It would be interesting to hear how you get on this winter Palo, a lot is trial and error, but it sounds like youre pre-thinking lots to experience more success than i did with my errors! ?

 

[PurBee]

Which rubber mats are you using? The glossy waterproof ones or rubber chip mats?

 

[palo1]

Which rubber mats are you using? The glossy waterproof ones or rubber chip mats?

I am not sure what sort of mats they are tbh!! I inherited them but they have vertical grooves underneath and round pimples on top lol. About an inch thick! I currently have 18-20 large ones as a central mat Thank you for all the good info; I will find some large fir chip for the outdoor bed/loo and try to get the herd to spend a few hours a day with just that available. What sort of suppliers should I look for? Sorry if that is a dense question!

I think that sounds like a really safe but durable option. I will give them shavings on the undercover mats as I suspect that my senior horse will not lie down straight onto a mat and the whole point is to make things better for the horses lol. I can't do straw and probably don't want to spend on wood pellets so I think it will have to be shavings. Hopefully though it will still be more economical than if I had to deal with stables per se. We still have to complete the yard boundary fence so I have a bit of thinking time left and when I can I will turn out, even if just for a couple of hours. At our last place I had a sort of similar arrangement though had a shavings bed in 2 open stables and the yard led onto a winter turnout paddock. However, in wet weather that was so grim (on clay) that I would have to shut the horses on the yard and it totally destroyed that bit of land. I would rather avoid doing that again even though it means that field based turnout (or mud based turnout ) will be less easy. You can but try I guess!!

At least they will all be able to move around, roll, sunbathe, groom each other etc in this set up, wherever they choose to pee!! I can also give them some other forms of enrichment. I really appreciate all this good information and experience; now off to google fir woodchip/forestry chippings...

 

[tda]

The mares and foals like to go into the stables or under the barn to wee and poo ??
Foals like to lay down against the hay feeder, in the dregs.
One dirty mare doesn't like to stop eating so she just assembles a pile of poo ???

 

[PurBee]

Are you up north near scotland? The forestry dept. Managing all those forests generally have sawmills close-by they either own themselves to process the fir trunks, or out-source contract to local saw mills.

Google might enlighten you. If wales now has many spruce forests its likely saw mills local to there would know too.

You could ring-up large sawmills to those regions and ask where you can get a few tonnes of spruce wood chip from the forestry, no doubt they’ll likely know a main processor of the wood, if they dont themselves.

Some farmers here in ireland know who to contact for a local chap who can get a wagon full of forestry fir logs, or deals with chipping it, so also worth asking old timer farmers of your area.

A local farmer bought himself a massive chipper and buys wagons full of logs from the local forestry dept., to sell as chip, or planed boardss, or firewood logs - that’s who i got a huge trailer load from for around 400 euro for roughly 14 cubic metres of chip.

Retail price is quite high for a 1 cubic metre bag…80euro, probably more these days. Going direct to the mill and buying in bulk is vastly cheaper.