Hemp bedding or another that can be put on a muck heap for spreading??

[jenni_w]

Im about to move yards and have been told I cannot use shavings as it doesnt rot down quick enough and they spread the heap on the fields. My boy cant be on straw. I have rubber matting down too.

Im perfectly happy to move to a hemp based bedding but was wondering which are the best?? Im using Hunters shavings at the mo and they are about £8.50 a bale. So, money saving would be a great product of changing but isnt my main motivation.

Have any of you got expereince of Hemcore/ Auboise/ Aquamax etc??

Thanks

 

[BigRed]

I use hemcore, it is brilliant. I pay £6.50 for it. It is more absorbant than shavings and rots down really well. You don't treat it like shavings though, it is meant to be a semi deep litter bedding. You take off the poo and wait for the wet to "make an appearance" and then remove it. It makes a really good bed.

Aubiose is also lovely to use, but it is more expensive than Hemcore.

 

[aimeeq94]

aubiose is around £10 a bale :O
xx

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

I use Aubiose and it is a tenner but I still use it because it is sooooooooooooobrilliant. And it rots down in about 6 weeks, making a luscious compost....

I save money compared with shavings cos I used so much with my messy ones and it took me hours. I can do both horses in less than an hour now, about half what it was!

 

[eventgirl]

I work on a large college yard and we use Jopack Flax. Its about £7 a bale and is really good. Obviously with over 100 horses we generate a lot of muck and it all gets used on the farm. It works out even cheaper if you buy it by the pallet load!

 

[Bert&Maud]

I use Thorobed flax, its just under £7 a bale, I order 36 bales at a time from Allenshill. It's really absorbent, like the other hemp/flax products you don't muck out fully every day. With one horse I just used to take the wet out once a week, my new (ish!) boy is much wetter and more untidy so probably every 5 days or so.

 

[jenni_w]

Cool sounds good. I know one lady is on Hemcore at the yard so will prob use that.

So what the the hemp bed technique then??

Sounds like you just pick off the poos and then take out the wet once a week?? Do you flick up the bedding like shavings and let poos roll out though, cos that unearths the wet normally. My boy likes to squash his poos in so i take my time finding them! Although he does only wee in one patch so i can work around it i suppose.

How many bales of hemcore to set up a new bed then? His stable is a massive 12 X 17 foot!! But only have 12X14 of matting so wont obvioulsy have a bed that size.

 

[lachlanandmarcus]

You would prob need up to 10 to start it off well. (my chap has a 16x12 with 12x12 bed in it and it toook 8)

You wont need to dig or flick very much, cos the bits the bedding is made of are heavier and the bed is more stable they dont let the poo fall through so much.

I take the wet out when it starts to appear, about every 7-9 days.

 

[palomino698]

We've tried several types of bedding over the years but always come back to Aubiose as the most economical and quickest to muck out. Hemcore smells of citronella, which is nice, but I'd use one bag one week and need two the next, whereas with Aubiose I top up with one bag each week all winter (we bulk the banks out with shavings when setting the beds up). I get Aubiose for just under £9 a bale collected.

The wet will form a mat underneath, which doesn't move but is heavy to lift if you leave it too long. The droppings tend to stay in the dry top layer and are easily sifted out with a plastic fork. We take droppings out daily and each weekend we rake the dry top layer aside and take out a barrow load of wet bedding. Any that isn't soaked dries quickly when thrown up on the banks and goes back down as the new bottom layer.

Aquamax is more like cat litter, expensive, and really needs to be used with rubber mats. We don't have rubber, the bedding is straight onto concrete.

 

[lannerch]

I deep litter with hemcore.

It is so easy, I take half a wheel barrow ( all the poohs out daily ) on saturday I may take a little of the wet out as well, and I use a bale a week.

once a year in the sring I remove all the wet, suprisingly not a difficult task, don't know why, don't know where all the wet goes.

The trick is to start with a decent thick bed, and distirb that bed as little as possible.

 

[blueberry23]

some of the prices quoted are so expensive, when i read nearly ten pound a bale i fell off my chair ? Why wouldnt you want to use cheaper alternatives ? is the stuff you mentioned really that good ?

 

[pollypt]

I have begun using wood pellets, there over half the price of other bedding, try Liverpool Wood pellets.

www.liverpoolwoodpellets.co.uk

 

[davidoricardo]

Aquamax is the best I've found, rots quickly, great for composting, about £6.50 a bag, no dust and no smell!!! try horsezz.co.uk for the best prices. ta!

 

[TURBOBERT]

Ive tried most things - now a total Hemcore addict for all the reasons mentioned above - . It is 7.50 here and I use two a week. It is so absorbant and biodegradable and cheaper than Auboise - which is the same only made in France . I poo pick every day and take the wet out one or two times a week - about 5/10 mins a box to do.

 

[the watcher]

I use chopped rape straw, which is quite similar in use to hemp bedding, it is also cheaper. Once a good deep bed is set up it can be deep littered easily.