Help with Aquamax please!

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ajb123

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Disgustingly filthy mare is now stabled using Aquamax. She is in a 14 x 15 stable which is fully rubber matted. She is still making the most horrendous mess. I only bed down about half the stable and she insists on doing all her poos and wees on the bedding and every morning it is awash! I could easily put 2 bags of Aquamax in a week but it is too expensive for that. She grinds every bit of poo into the Aquamax which I then try and sift through to get some of the wet into the clean which is in the very small banks I leave for her.

So far she has been on shavings - awful again but didnt take quite so long to muck out due to no "sieving" needing of bedding but local stockists are now £9.50 per bale for shavings so I think that is out of the question.

Straw - complete nightmare - everything ground into a total quagmire of poo and wee - was taking out at least 2 wheelbarrows full a day! Anyone any ideas? Do you think it worth investing in one of the "proper" Aquamax shavings fork would that help?
 
I've never used Aquamax so can't comment on how it mucks out wtc but if my mare was a dirty as you discribe then i am afraid she'd have no bedding, just the rubber mats!

Perhaps you could just put a bag of aquamax down over the week so you just give her a fresh sprinkle of new bedding everyday then just sweep the whole lot out every morning.
 
George used to be the dirtiest, wettest horse I'd known. Then came Aquamax.

I use one bag a week, which either goes in on a Saturday or I might end up putting in a few handfuls halfway through the week and the rest at the weekend.

Each day you MUST remove any solid wet, squelchy wet, very very dark/reddy coloured bedding, as well as poos. Otherwise the wet gets soaked up by the drier bedding as time goes on. You cannot deep litter it, as I am sure you are aware.

With the poos, it is best to use a fine tine fork as it has a basket and very narrow gaps between the prongs so little bits of poo cannot fall through. It is amazing for sieving through pellet bedding. I throw the whole bed against the wall so that I don't miss any solids and then I pull down the bed and kick it around to mix older with newer stuff. Plus I do not have banks as there is little point unless you are going to have banks several feet high. I have little bits round the sides, but not really banks.

By doing this (it has taken time to get into the groove doing the bed properly), the bed is lasting really well and he is cleaner than even my other horse who is on straw!
 
Well to be honest if she is that disgusting I would go with the bucket full of bedding a day and sweep it out every day. my yearling is truly foul - he manages to make every bit of bedding filthy so I simply leave him with rubber matting and some Natures Best ( similar to Aquamax) down to pee on. All my other horses are on good beds of Natures bet and I love it but Jack just is the most disgusting horse ever.
 
The problem with doing that with Aquamax is that it's a super absorbent bedding so it takes longer than a day for the bedding to become saturated, even in one area. If you're going to do that then you are best off just using straw as it is much cheaper.

My boy was about the same as your girl and it still does get moved round in the bed, but it now takes me 15-20 minutes to remove everything solid, pulling the whole bed up and putting it back down again.
 
I'd go for the no bed!
Much easier to sweep everything out, chuck a bucket of water over and use one of those scrapes like a big window cleaner to get rid of the wet ( should be able to buy them in hardware stores)
Rug her up and just wash the rug every week instead.
My friend does this and has done for years. Saves a lot of money!
But the stable stinks!
 
You either need to establish a thicker/bigger bed to start with and then try to just put in one bag a week or accept that it's going to need 2.

At home we actually use a cheaper version of aquamax and use approx 3 or 4 bags a week per stable to keep it nice. But theyre full liveries and so the beds have to be pristine
 
Well I would not stop using Aquamax for all the tea in china now! I get it for £4.85 a bale (80 on a pallet), and his bed stays looking nice all week because I have tried different ways of doing it until finding the way that works with this bedding. I may change to straw in the future as I am having success with my other messy horse and deep littering straw works wonders for him (we make our own straw now), but until then Aquamax beats all the other beddings I have tried hands down, moainly because 1 bag a week keeps it looking lovely and all I have to do is trouble myself to remove a couple of forkfuls of wet a day with the poos.

I would recommend the bucket of bedding a day if you are going to use a cheapy bedding like sawdust, but don't use more expensive beddings that are meant to be used for their absorbancy
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I use aquamax for one of mine, who nomaly poos in a corner & that's it. However last night with all the wind & rain the poo was scattered everwhere & took me forever to get it out. As the bedding is super absorbant it takes out the moisture from the poo meaning that it falls apart easily. A couple of laps round the stable & it's horrible.

I do deep litter my bed & it gives it a really good base over the concrete. The only bit of advice I can offer is to put a thin layer of shavings over the top of the aquamax, this helps the poo retain their moisture & stay whole.
 
I use Aqumax on all of mine.
I have a very dirty arab and give him a very small amount and scope it out each day.
The secret is, soak a bag in a barrow for about an hour first to activate it and then just throw a bucket full down each day.
grin.gif
 
My Gelding is wet so is on Aquamax mixed with flax as just aquamax means wet rises to the top very quickly (too absorbent for it to spread out ) and his rugs get wet when he lies down. The Mare is disgusting and gets a fine sprinkling which is swept out each day. Because she wees less, but in more places, it is absorbed and her rugs don't get wet either.
 
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